Dark Matter Exists

olclops writes "It's a big day for astrophysics. After much speculation, scientists now have conclusive proof of dark matter. This result doesn't rule out alternate gravity theories like MOND, but it does mean those theories will have to account for exotic forms of dark matter."

Comments

What is "dark matter"?

[Gorimek]

I have a basic question:

Can this "dark matter" be regular matter that is just not well lit, or does it have to be some new kind of elemental particle as much of the discussion here seems to imply?

Since the only things we can see out there are stars and things close enough to them to be lit by them, I would assume there can be enormous amounts of other things in space that we just don't see. Think a trillion earths, and/or huge thin gas clouds. But it sounds like that's not what's being discussed here.