dark matter

Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.

• US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
  Play

The term is often said to have been coined in 1933 by the Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky in German (as Dunkle Materie), but it had already been in use for decades, in French (matière obscure) by Henri Poincaré as early as 1906, and in English. In contrast to these earlier authors, Zwicky used the term to refer to the apparent mass needed to account for galaxy clusters, where the mass of luminous matter did not add up to enough of a gravitational effect, which led him to infer the existence of nonluminous matter to account for the missing mass. The term gained new popularity in the 1970s as a result of Vera Rubin's publishing (in English) her discovery that some galaxies did not seem to have enough mass to account for their rotation curves.

66 source translations are retained for this English entry.

• Afrikaans: donker materie — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Arabic: مَادَّة مَظْلِمَة (mādda maẓlima) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Armenian: մութ մատերիա (mutʻ materia) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Asturian: materia escuro — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Azerbaijani: qaranlıq maddə — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Basque: materia ilun — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Belarusian: цёмная матэ́рыя (cjómnaja matéryja) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Bulgarian: тъ́мна мате́рия (tǎ́mna matérija) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Catalan: matèria fosca — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Chinese Mandarin: 暗物質 /暗物质 (ànwùzhì) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Chuvash: тӗксӗм йӑмлӑх (tĕksĕm jămlăh) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Czech: temná hmota — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Danish: mørkt stof — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Danish: mørk materie — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Dutch: donkere materie — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Esperanto: malluma materio — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Estonian: tumeaine — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Faroese: dimmevni — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Finnish: pimeä aine — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• French: matière noire — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• French: matière sombre — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Galician: materia escura — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Galician: materia negra — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Georgian: ბნელი მატერია (bneli maṭeria) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• German: Dunkle Materie — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Greek: σκοτεινή ύλη (skoteiní ýli) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Hebrew: חומר אפל — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Hungarian: sötét anyag — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Icelandic: hulduefni — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Ido: materio obskura — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Indonesian: materi gelap — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Irish: damhna dorcha — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Italian: materia oscura — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Japanese: 暗黒物質 (ankoku busshitsu) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Japanese: ダークマター (dākumatā) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Kannada: ಡಾರ್ಕ್ ಮ್ಯಾಟರ್ (ḍārk myāṭar) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Kazakh: қараңғы материя (qarañğy materiä) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Korean: 암흑 물질 (amheuk muljil) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Latvian: tumšā matērija — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Lithuanian: tamsioji medžiaga — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Lithuanian: nematomoji medžiaga — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Lithuanian: tamsioji materija — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Macedonian: тéмна матéрија (témna matérija) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Malay: jirim gelap — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Norwegian: mørk materie — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Persian: ماده تاریک (mâdde-ye târik) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Polish: ciemna materia — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Portuguese: matéria escura — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Portuguese: matéria negra — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Romanian: materie întunecată — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Russian: тёмная мате́рия (tjómnaja matérija) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Russian: скры́тая ма́сса (skrýtaja mássa) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Serbo-Croatian: тамна тва̑р — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Serbo-Croatian: тамна ма̀те̄рија — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Serbo-Croatian: tamna tvȃr — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Serbo-Croatian: tamna màtērija — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Sicilian: materia nìvira — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Slovak: tmavá hmota — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Slovak: temná hmota — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Slovene: tèmna snóv — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Spanish: materia oscura — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Swedish: mörk materia — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Thai: สสารมืด (sàsăan mêut) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Turkish: karanlık madde — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Ukrainian: тéмна матéрія (témna matérija) — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation
• Vietnamese: vật chất tối — particles of matter that cannot be detected by their radiation