Submitted by chandra on Fri, 01/11/2008 - 11:23.
Like the jelly beans in this jar, the Universe is mostly dark: 96 percent consists of dark energy (about 70%) and dark matter (about 26%). Only about four percent (the same proportion as the lightly colored jelly beans) of the Universe— including the stars, planets and us—is made of familiar atomic matter. Read about the make up of the Universe
(1 vote)
Sobering Thought
This is a very sobering thought and makes me realize just how small our world really is. Its hard to wrap your mind around this thought.
John Acai Campbell
Jelly Bean Universe
By inference, we can only claim to have (at most) a 4% understanding of the nature and composition of our own universe. Staggering thought!
John McDermott
Intresting
Good example to understand about our universe but i have one question what is mean by dark energy you talking about in this article can you please explain.
Dark energy is a mysterious
Dark energy is a mysterious source of energy introduced to explain the acceleration of the expansion of the Universe. One possible explanation is that it is the energy present in empty space - "vacuum energy" - which has the properties of a repulsive force.
CXC
It´s quite frightening but
It´s quite frightening but fascinating at the same time.
Great explanation
I showed this to my 12 years old son and he seems to begin understending the universe nature
Dark Matter
Could you try to explain in "human words" what Dark matter is?
Kind Regards
Jonas
RE: Dark Matter
For more information on dark matter, see this entry:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_astro/dark_matter/index.html
-Chandra pub team