Etymology

dark matter

Today it means: Matter which cannot be detected by its radiation but whose presence is inferred from gravitational effects. Full definition →

German Dunkle Materie
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The story

  1. German · calque ofDunkle Materie
  2. English todaydark matter

Calque of German Dunkle Materie. The term gained new popularity in the 1970s as a result of Vera Rubin's publishing (in English) her discovery that some galaxies did not seem to have enough mass to account for their rotation curves.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.