AiS Challenge Team Abstract

Team Number:    010

School Name:      Bosque School

Area of Science:  Astrophysics

Project Title:        Shining Light on Dark Matter



Although scientists know it's out there and that ninety percent of the universe is made up of it, dark matter still remains a mystery, unable to be seen and only detectable by the effect it has on galaxies and other cosmic structures. Largely known for its gravitational pull, scientists believe dark matter to be responsible for most, if not all, of the "missing mass" of the universe, as well as other unexplained cosmic phenomena, including the temperature of cosmic gases.  While scientists have observed that cosmic gases are not seen to go beneath a certain temperature (approximately 1000 Kelvin), they do not know why and suspect that dark matter interacts with the gases in such a way that the velocity of dark matter prevents the gases from cooling down any further.

We intend, during the course of the year, to model the effect of dark matter on the temperature of clouds of cosmic gases.  We hope to create a program that will determine the amount of dark matter that must be present in and around the cosmic gases for this temperature to be observed.  This is important because while scientists can speculate the amount of dark matter that is needed to observe these temperatures, nothing has been proved and thus no international constant has been applied in scientific experiments, only varying constants. 

Team Members

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