The NASA Hubble Space Telescope image above shows the distribution of dark matter in the center of the giant galaxy cluster Abell 1689, containing about 1,000 galaxies and trillions of stars. A recent study suggests that dark matter could warm millions of starless planets in regions such as Abell 1689 and make them habitable.
Scientists think the invisible, as-yet-unidentified dark matter which we know exists because of the gravitational effects it has on galaxies, makes up about 85 percent of all matter in the universe. Current prime candidates for what dark matter might be are massive particles that only rarely interact with normal matter. These particles could be their own antiparticles, meaning they annihilate each other when they meet, releasing energy. These invisible particles could get captured by a planet's gravity and unleash energy that could warm that world, according to physicist Dan Hooper and astrophysicist Jason Steffen at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory.
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