Fritz Zwicky and Dark Matter

Wes Donehower
The “Missing Mass” Problem
 In 1933, Zwicky was studying galaxies
and he estimated their total mass by
measuring their brightness
 Then, he used a different method of
measuring the mass, and came up with
a number 400x his estimate
 Nobody did anything about it
Dark Matter
 When scientists
began to realize that
large amounts of
hidden mass would
explain a lot of their
findings, they began
to search for “Dark
Matter”
 Dark Matter
 Dark matter cannot be
seen or felt; Its
existence is implied
 Could be subatomic
particles lighter than an
electron or black holes
millions of time more
massive than the Sun.
MACHO’s and WIMP’s
 WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive
Particles)
 Smaller than atoms
 MACHO (Massive Astrophysical
Compact Halo Objects)
 Black Holes
 Brown Dwarfs
Dark Matter
 It is believed that Dark Matter could
make up 90% of our Universe
 Some scientist are skeptical of WIMP’s
existence, but it seems unlikely that
MACHO’s could make up 90% of our
Universe
 The discovery of Dark Matter would
affect our place in the Universe