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Think the Upside Down in Stranger Things is a work of fiction? Well, it is, but something eerily reminiscent of the Upside Down – dark matter, or a “dark mirror” universe – is being studied and taken very seriously by scientists.
So what exactly is dark matter? NASA explains, “Like ordinary matter, dark matter takes up space and holds mass. But it doesn’t reflect, absorb, or radiate light – at least not enough for us to detect yet.
“While scientists have measured that dark matter makes up about 27% of the cosmos, they’re not sure what it is. Theories include several kinds of as-yet unidentified types of particles that rarely interact with normal matter.”
According to astrophysicist Paul Sutter of Live Science, “It might be easy to think that because matter and dark matter operate with different rules, one would be totally dominant over the other. But despite having wildly different properties, the amounts of normal matter and dark matter are still in the same ballpark. That seems like a strange coincidence.”
So, is there a “dark mirror” universe that exists right alongside the one we can actually see?
That is what a new study published in on the pre-print server arXiv aimed to try and find out.
The scientists’ theory is that that for every physical interaction with normal matter, there is a mirror interaction with dark matter. This would support the idea that there is approximately the same amount of dark matter as there is regular matter.
“In the early universe, normal matter underwent nucleosynthesis, when the first elements formed in a nuclear plasma,” Sutter explains. “If this new idea is correct, then there was a mirror nucleosynthesis also happening in dark matter. In those chaotic early days, channels may have opened up between the two worlds, enabling them to affect each other.”
Similar studies have been conducted in the past on these and similar theories.
Back in 2020, NASA found evidence of a parallel universe where time goes backwards and the rules of physics are the opposite.
That discovery served to feed other theories, some less plausible than others, such as that which believes Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and other cryptids actually live in a parallel universe.
They, therefore, can only be seen by certain people who are more psychic than others. It would also explain why decades of the sightings, expeditions and the usage of scientific tools have never yielded any concrete results or proof of these creatures’ existence.