this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2025
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It's not dark matter, it's normal (baryonic) matter that we hadn't found a way to see yet. Dark matter doesn't interact with light at all, so we only detect its gravitational effects.
wikipedia
Dark matter was posited, in part, because we couldn't explain how galaxies don't fling apart due to the rotational forces. Since we observed the effects, but couldn't see nor detect the cause, we thought something should be there that doesn't interact with light. However, these findings and that of Caltech show that there isn't a need for a theoretical matter as normal matter at very low densities will do just fine.
Which leads us back to the question, dafuq is dark energy?
Dark energy is the force believed to drive the expansion of the universe. The distance between galaxies continues to grow and the doesn't seem to be a good explanation for it yet. It's the "X" variable acting as a placeholder until that's answered. Or at least that is my understanding.
After reading the wikipedia article, that basic understanding of it might be correct, but I'm not an astrophysicist.