Can We Finally Settle This and Just Move On? Dark Matter Particles Are a Figment of the Imagination

Posted by Guy Pirro 07/12/2026 03:54PM

Image from the James Webb Space Telescope of the inner region of the Bullet Cluster -- Pink shows the hot gas. The distribution of what may be dark matter is shown in blue. According to a new study, neutron stars and black holes could explain the gravitational lensing effect that up to now has been considered to offer the best evidence of the existence of dark matter (and also nullified other competing theories). The new evidence from JWST using the new data now suggests just the opposite -- that dark matter may not exist at all. (Image Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, CXC) (Science Credit: James Jee - Yonsei University/UC Davis, Sangjun Cha - Yonsei University, Kyle Finner – Caltech/IPAC)

Can We Finally Settle This and Just Move On? Dark Matter Particles Are a Figment of the Imagination

For close on a century, researchers have hypothesized that the Universe appears to contain more matter than can be directly observed. This idea of missing matter was kicked off in 1933 when Swiss astronomer Fritz Zwicky made a discovery that left the scientific world speechless -- There was, claimed Zwicky, substantially more matter in the Universe than we could actually see. Astronomers called this unknown matter "Dark matter," a concept that took on more importance in the 1970s, when the US astronomer Vera Rubin and astrophysicist Albert Bosma called on this enigmatic matter to explain the movements and speed of the stars. Scientists have subsequently devoted considerable resources to detecting Dark Matter -- in space, on the ground, and even at CERN -- but without success. Clearly, such a discovery, if achieved, would be worthy of a Nobel Prize in Physics.

However, new research recently released at the University of Bonn, along with work at many other universities across the world, is concluding that the movement of the stars in galaxies and other anomalies can be explained without drawing on the concept of dark matter... In fact, much of this work is pointing to a very inconvenient conclusion – Dark matter may not actually exist at all. It is a figment of the imagination that has been used to explain away something that we simply do not fully understand.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. History provides us with many examples where scientists have simply invented ideas out of thin air to help explain away things that were just not understood at the time. In some ways, dark matter bring to mind another imaginary concept -- the so called "Aether Wind" of the 1800s. Back then, everybody just "knew" that space was filled with an "Aether Wind." The problem was that no one had ever seen it nor measured it.

In 1887, Albert Michelson and Edward Morley set out to prove the existence of Aether Wind once and for all. Their experiment failed spectacularly in its attempt to detect any Aether Wind, but in the process they showed that the whole concept of Aether Wind, which most scientists at the time simply accepted as fact, was flawed -- There was no such thing.

Albert Michelson eventually won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1907 for this work and became the first American to do so.

Will the concept of dark matter meet the same fate as the Aether Wind of the 19th century? Time will tell.

Fast forward to 2026 and the burning question today is “Do dark matter particles exist?” According to the main stream scientific community, of course they do. It is a well known “Fact,” even though every attempt to detect dark matter particles has failed.

To date, the Bullet Cluster has been considered to offer the best evidence of the existence of dark matter that also nullifies other competing theories. Now, an international team of researchers has analyzed new data and current images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and according to this team, the observations are consistent with an alternative explanation that does not involve dark matter. If the latter is, in fact, present, it is likely to be in smaller quantities than postulated so far.

Around 4 billion years ago, there was a huge collision in space: Two galaxy clusters – clusters of hundreds of galaxies – crashed into each other at speeds of over 2500 kilometers per second. Galaxy clusters contain many billions of stars. The majority of their visible matter, however, consists of interstellar gas. While the two gas clouds were passing through each other, they were significantly slowed down by frictional forces and also heated up considerably. Using X-ray telescopes, the hot clouds can be seen from the Earth as two diffuse patches that lie relatively close to one another.

The galaxies in the two clusters, however, were able to pass through each other unhindered: The distance between the individual stars is so great that they simply flew past each other. The two galaxy clusters were thus separated from the interstellar gas that they carried with them. Cluster 1 is now to the left of the left gas cloud, cluster 2 is to the right of the right one. Together, these four structures form what is known as the Bullet Cluster. It has earned a degree of fame among astrophysicists, as it is considered compelling evidence for the existence of dark matter.

If you look closely at images of the formation, you can see that galaxies behind the Bullet Cluster appear distorted into crescent shapes. The reason for this is the gravitational lensing effect. This refers to the phenomenon predicted by Albert Einstein, according to which large masses deflect light. Incredibly, however, this deflection is not particularly large in the region of the two luminous clouds of matter – i.e., where the greatest mass should be concentrated. Instead, the galaxy clusters to their right and left exert a much stronger lensing effect, despite their low mass. It thus appears that further matter is hidden here that we are unable to see.

“This observation has so far been considered evidence of the existence of dark matter,” explains Prof. Dr. Pavel Kroupa from the Helmholtz Institute of Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the University of Bonn, a member of the Transdisciplinary Research Areas “Modelling” and “Matter.” This is because, according to current theory, dark matter exerts gravitational forces but does not otherwise interact with normal matter. As a result, unlike the gas clouds, it is not slowed down by friction and is also not separated from the visible matter in the galaxy clusters.

However, we still do not have any direct evidence that dark matter exists. The Israeli physicist Prof. Dr. Mordehai Milgrom suggested an alternative hypothesis four decades ago that does not involve dark matter – “modified Newtonian dynamics” (MOND). Nevertheless, it is still considered a fringe theory – largely because it has previously been assumed that it cannot explain the observations in the Bullet Cluster.

“However, we show in our study that, on the contrary, the Bullet Cluster is actually particularly consistent with the MOND scenario,” says Kroupa’s colleague Dong Zhang, who carried out a large proportion of the calculations. New data from the James Webb Space Telescope allows a better, more precise calculation of the number of stars in both clusters. It is also known today that the Bullet Cluster contains a large number of heavy elements such as iron and oxygen. These are produced in fusion processes within stars, but only if the stars are very massive. “If massive stars eventually burn up, they become neutron stars or black holes,” explains Zhang. “Like dark matter, both are invisible and can only be detected by the huge gravitational forces that they exert.”

Co-author Dr. Indranil Banik (University of Portsmouth) was able to show that the observed gravitational lensing effect can be explained by the newly calculated number of visible stars, neutron stars, and black holes. “The remnants of massive stars take on the role of dark matter to a certain extent in the MOND scenario,” says Kroupa. “Even in the standard model, which assumes the existence of dark matter, its postulated quantity would have to be significantly reduced – by around half.”

The physics professor from Bonn is convinced that the current study makes the MOND scenario much more plausible.

For more information:

https://www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/collision-in-space-is-not-evidence-of-dark-matter-after-all

https://quantumzeitgeist.com/dark-matter-might-not-exist-heres-what-could-replace-it/

https://science.nasa.gov/missions/webb/nasa-webb-pierces-bullet-cluster-refines-its-mass/

https://www.astromart.com/news/show/hes-up-hes-down-hes-up-hes-down-has-mond-finally-delivered-a-knockout-blow-to-dark-matter

https://www.astromart.com/news/show/good-bye-dark-matter-and-dark-energy-say-hello-to-co-varying-coupled-constants-and-tired-light

https://www.astromart.com/news/show/and-just-like-that-all-the-imaginary-dark-matter-in-the-universe-disappeared

https://www.astromart.com/news/show/scientists-find-a-way-to-scientifically-explain-why-dark-matter-is-not-there

https://www.astromart.com/news/show/could-photon-mass-contribute-to-the-rotational-dynamics-of-galaxies-and-negate-the-need-for-dark-matter

https://www.astromart.com/news/show/does-modified-newtonian-dynamics-negate-the-need-for-dark-matter

https://www.astromart.com/news/show/have-the-imaginary-concepts-of-dark-matter-and-dark-energy-finally-run-their-course