Researchers observe 12-billion-year-old dark matter, the oldest ever detected in the universe

Sept. 26, 2022

A new survey of the night sky has observed dark matter — the mysterious substance that makes up more than a quarter of the universe but emits no light of its own — as it existed 12 billion years ago, not long after the universe began. This oldest-ever snapshot of dark matter in the universe offers the tantalizing possibility that the fundamental rules of cosmology may have differed during the early history of our universe.