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*** I'm guessing that science has arrived at these conclusions because the universe needs to have more 'substance' to account for its present (observable) behaviour? ***
Spot on John, scientists observe behaviour that doesn't match up with the maths.
We know that the outer planets orbit the Sun much slower than the inner planets due to the Suns gravity.
Back in the 1930's scientists assumed that the stars rotating around a galaxy would do the same thing.
What they discovered was that both outer and inner stars were rotating at the same speed, like a record on a turntable. When they did the maths, to work out the mass of the galaxy to produce that fast orbital speed of the outer stars, it came to 400 times more than the calculated mass of the visible galaxy. They called this invisible mass dark matter.
This 400:1 ratio has since been reduced to 5:1 due to better instruments calculating the visible galaxy mass.
Not all scientists believe in this theory, some say they have underestimated the influence caused by the mass of central supermassive black hole in each galaxy.
Other scientists say this extra mass is hidden in another dimension thats why its invisible, this is when science starts to turn into science fiction I think.
Anyway its all above my level of understanding.
Cheers
Bill
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