Why dark matter should be called something else

There are many things that we don’t understand about dark matter, but whether it is actually dark isn’t one of them, writes Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

By Chanda Prescod-Weinstein

WHAT’S the matter with dark matter? Its name, for one thing.

Dark matter is so-called because of the idea that it is like being in a room without a light on. But actually, we know the universe is filled with light even with lots of dark matter in it. We see evidence of this very often – directly from the sun during the day and reflecting off the moon at night. On a clear night we can see stars too. With sensitive instruments, we can also detect the cosmic microwave background radiation that pervades all of space-time.

The universe …