Could dark matter harbour dark life?
CrowdScience
BBC
4.8 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 17 May 2019
⏱️ 32 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Where the conditions are right, life can arise. But what might the ‘right’ conditions be? Could the dark sector of our Universe be inhabited? That’s what Gautam from Delhi, India has been wondering. He points out that dark matter and dark energy make up around 95% of the Universe and the remaining segment is normal matter - the stuff we’re all made up of. Given that there’s so much of this dark material, could dark life have evolved? Marnie Chesterton investigates with Dr Matt Middleton, Dr Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil and Dr Renato Costa. Together, they unpick what dark matter and dark energy are and test out some listener theories as to what these mysterious mediums might be. For instance, Yoseph from Ogden, USA questions whether black holes could account for the missing matter and it turns out, he might just be on to something… Presented by Marnie Chesterton. Produced by Graihagh Jackson for BBC World Service.
(Photo: Arrangement of Nebula, Stars and a colourful galaxy. Credit: Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of |
| 0:07.0 | Happiness Podcast. |
| 0:08.0 | For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want |
| 0:14.4 | to share that science with you. |
| 0:16.1 | And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley. |
| 0:19.4 | I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that calmer place within. |
| 0:27.0 | Listen on BBC Sounds. Malcolm. |
| 0:35.0 | Oh, no, that's all right. |
| 0:39.0 | Does he let people drink in the observatory? |
| 0:47.0 | I'm not sure about that. All right, we're breaking the rules. |
| 0:50.0 | I'm Marnie Chestton, |
| 0:52.0 | host of crowd science, and for a previous episode on the BBC World Service |
| 0:56.5 | I climbed up to a little known observatory in Central London, partly to drink hot cocoa, |
| 1:02.2 | but mainly to uncover the secrets of the universe. |
| 1:07.0 | If you look up, you can see it's sort of hazy. |
| 1:11.0 | There are stars, you can see the stars, but it's sort of hazy, so that's just pollution and London. |
| 1:17.0 | And it means that you can see bright things, but it's quite difficult spotting galaxies. |
| 1:23.0 | Step on the plants. |
| 1:26.0 | The reason the crowd science team tackled ice-covered planks at night time |
| 1:31.0 | was that Lissner Kuhnh Howe from Singapore sent us a question and we |
| 1:35.2 | exist to answer your science queries. Here's a quick recap. My question is |
| 1:40.5 | regarding dark matter and is there any way that we can understand it more and maybe find it useful for daily living? |
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