New 'dark fluid' theory could explain why 95 percent of the universe is 'missing'

Researchers may have finally put an end to the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy, which are names given to things physicists don’t yet know or understand. Based on some indirect observations, researchers have observed that dark matter and energy permeate through the universe, but we can’t see it. Now, a study has suggested that these two cosmic phenomena account for nearly 95 percent of all the mass in the known universe. According to the study, both these phenomena — dark matter and dark energy — can be explained using a third, new concept of ‘dark fluid’.

The study highlights dark fluid as a new form of matter that fills the vast fabric of the cosmos and has a negative mass, i.e., it (hypothetically) has the opposite mass of material we know have as having a positive mass, like feathers, pencils, rocks and planets. Interestingly, if you pushed an object with negative mass, it will accelerate towards you instead of away. Objects (or fluids) with negative mass behave the opposite way of all conventional materials. While invisible, the dark fluid could explain a lot of phenomena that we don’t yet fully understand, Dr Jamie Farnes, lead astrophysicists in the study (who also created a computer model of the dark fluid’s role in the universe) explained in an essay he authored for The Conversation.

For instance, Farnes’ model could explain the reason behind galaxies being held in space as they spin rather than flying apart. But Farnes admits that there’s a possibility the negative mass theory could be wrong in his essay. “The theory seems to provide answers to so many currently open questions that scientists will — quite rightly — be rather suspicious,” he writes. “However, it is often the out-of-the-box ideas that provide answers to longstanding problems. The strong accumulating evidence has now grown to the point that we must consider this unusual possibility.”