22 results for “dark matter”
Space & the Universe
Dark Matter and Dark Energy
dark matter is not Dark matter is not simply ordinary stuff that happens to be dim. Astronomers
Article · 3 min read
Matter, Energy & Physics
Gravity
dark matter and dark energy, which show themselves only through gravity, really are, remain among the largest
Article · 4 min read
Space & the Universe
Galaxies and the Milky Way
dark matter, invisible but holding the whole structure together with its gravity. Counting the stars Nobody
Article · 4 min read
Animals
Mammals
matter to biologists: a single lower jawbone, three tiny bones in the middle ear that evolved from reptile jaw bones, a diaphragm for breathing, and a large brain relative to body size
Article · 4 min read
Animals
Sharks
dark. The Greenland shark drifts through Arctic waters at a kilometre an hour and lives for 400 years or more, reaching maturity at 150. Wobbegongs lie camouflaged on reefs; thresher sharks stun
Article · 3 min read
Planets & the Solar System
The Moon
dark patches, which early astronomers named maria, Latin for seas, are not water but vast plains of frozen lava that welled up through giant impact basins between about 3.1 and 3.8 billion
Article · 4 min read
Animals
Animal Migration
dark depths to feed near the surface, and every dawn they sink again to hide from predators. In sheer weight of life on the move, nothing else comes close. Finding
Article · 4 min read
Animals
Whales and Dolphins
darkness, holding its breath for over an hour. Baleen whales do not echolocate but sing. Humpback males produce long, structured songs, with repeated themes and phrases, lasting up to half an hour
Article · 4 min read
Planet Earth
Rocks, Minerals and Fossils
dark rock of the ocean floor and of Hawaii. If it cooled slowly underground over thousands of years, the crystals grew large, as in granite, with its speckles of pink feldspar, grey
Article · 4 min read
Plants & Fungi
Fungi
dark and crumbly, is largely the product of fungal digestion. Without fungi, nutrients would stay locked in dead matter
Article · 4 min read
Space & the Universe
Exoplanets: Worlds Around Other Stars
dark and sits right next to a star billions of times brighter, like a firefly beside a searchlight. Then in 1995 a team in Switzerland found a planet half the mass
Article · 3 min read
Matter, Energy & Physics
Sound
dark. Dolphins use clicks to sense fish and objects underwater. People copied the idea with sonar, which ships use to map the seafloor and find shoals of fish. Beyond our hearing Sounds
Article · 3 min read
Planets & the Solar System
Uranus and Neptune
dark material eight kilometres into its thin atmosphere. Triton is slowly spiralling inward and will one day be torn apart by Neptune's gravity, forming a ring. The unexplored frontier A single
Article · 4 min read
Life & Biology
Evolution
dark within decades as soot blackened the trees they rested on, and turned pale again when the air was cleaned. In the Galápagos, Darwin's finches have been watched evolving beak size
Article · 4 min read
Animals
Reptiles and Amphibians
dark with infrared sensors on their faces. Turtles and tortoises carry a shell of bone fused to the ribs and spine, a design unchanged for 200 million years; they are among
Article · 3 min read
Plants & Fungi
Seeds
dark it is pale; in the light it turns green and unfolds its first leaves. Until then it runs on the food the parent packed. A seedling that uses up its store
Article · 4 min read
Plants & Fungi
Trees and Forests
dark conifer forests of the north, where few species survive the cold but cover immense areas; the broadleaf forests of the temperate zone that drop their leaves each autumn; and the tropical
Article · 4 min read
Animals
Birds
darkness by sound alone. Migration Every autumn billions of birds leave the north for warmer places, and every spring they return, often to the exact tree. The Arctic tern breeds
Article · 3 min read
Space & the Universe
Nebulae
dark cloud standing in front of a glowing red one. Star nurseries The great emission nebulae are the places where stars are being born. Deep inside the Orion Nebula, infrared telescopes
Article · 3 min read
Planets & the Solar System
The Sun
dark only because they are cooler than their surroundings. The number of sunspots rises and falls on an eleven-year cycle. Twisted magnetic fields can snap and reconnect, releasing in minutes
Article · 4 min read
Planet Earth
Inside the Earth
dark basalt that erupted from undersea volcanoes. Under the continents it is thicker, up to seventy kilometres beneath mountain ranges, and made of lighter granite-like rock. Compared with the planet
Article · 4 min read
The Human Body
The Heart and Blood
dark and low in oxygen, enters the right side, which pumps it the short distance to the lungs. There it picks up oxygen and turns bright red, and flows back into
Article · 4 min read
