Imagine the universe as a big storybook. Scientists used to think it started with one massive explosion called the Big Bang. But now, scientists are considering another exciting idea – a sort of hidden event they call the “dark Big Bang”. This could help explain the mystery of dark matter, a mysterious substance making up a big part of the universe.
We’ve been looking at snapshots of the universe’s early days, just a few million years after the Big Bang, and it’s like finding a new chapter in the story. Astronomers are puzzled by how groups of galaxies move, and they think there’s something we can’t see that’s causing it.
Dark matter is this invisible stuff that doesn’t play with light or other forces we know. Some scientists now wonder if there might have been a quieter “Dark Big Bang” shortly after the regular Big Bang, less than a month into the universe’s existence.
This hypothetical event could have created different types of dark matter. There could be “darkzillas,” huge particles 10 trillion times the mass of a proton, or “dark cannibals,” which are lighter particles that absorb each other during collisions. Scientists like Katherine Freese from the University of Texas think studying waves in space, called gravitational waves, could help prove this Dark Big Bang idea.
This is a big change in how we think about the universe. Instead of one big explosion creating everything, scientists are now exploring the possibility of multiple smaller events gradually forming everything, from the stuff we can see to the mysterious dark matter.
To understand this better, scientists are using cool tricks like studying signals from special stars called pulsars to figure out where gravitational waves come from. It’s like trying to uncover the earliest parts of the universe’s story. The hope is that by doing this, we can finally solve the puzzle of dark matter and figure out if “darkzillas” or “dark cannibals” are the missing pieces in our cosmic tale.