
For a long time, the most popular idea was that it consists of hypothetical weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs. Physicists have proposed many theories with regards to the nature and origin of dark matter, an unknown form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. This is not only consistent with the observable evidence for the presence of dark matter, such as the inexplicably large rotation velocities of stars in some galaxies, but also mitigates some tension between our current understanding of the universe’s evolution and astronomical observations. In the new model, the masses of black holes vary widely, which is in contrast to previous theories of dark matter which incorporate black holes. A new model to explain dark matter has just been proposed, where physicists now think that it could be composed of primordial black holes born during the first moments following the Big Bang.
