• Question: what is the universe made out of

    Asked by harry to Stu, Rob, Maheen, Euan, Deborah on 13 Jun 2016. This question was also asked by mar+jazz:).
    • Photo: Rob Stanley

      Rob Stanley answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      That’s a difficult question!

      The parts of it that you can see is matter (atoms). But there’s a whole lot we know is there, but we don’t really know what it is called ‘dark matter’.

      But there’s lots more going on like energy and particles and the ‘fabric of spacetime’ that are all important. Unfortunately I don’t really know enough to be able to answer further, sorry!

    • Photo: Euan Allen

      Euan Allen answered on 13 Jun 2016:

      That’s a great question!

      The most broad answer I can give is that the universe is made up on lots of energy. This energy normally comes in two forms, which we call ‘matter’ and ‘radiation’.

      Matter is all the stuff in the universe. All the stars, galaxies, planets, animals, metals, you and me, we’re all made of up of tiny particles called atoms, and we call this stuff matter.

      Radiation is all the light in the universe which has been produced by the big bang, and now is being produced by all the stars in the universe.

      Like Rob said too, there is also a big chuck of the universe that we have no idea what it is made of. We call this stuff dark matter and dark energy. We know it exists because we can see the effect it has on how the planets and galaxies move, but we have not (yet) been able to directly observe it. This is why we call it ‘dark’!

    • Photo: Deborah Prunty

      Deborah Prunty answered on 14 Jun 2016:

      The universe is everything that exists. So in the simplest terms it’s made of… Well… everything!

      If you break that down further, it’s molecules and atoms, which are themselves made of even smaller things called subatomic particles.

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