Gravitational waves may have created dark matter in the early universe

In the chaotic first moments after the Big Bang, ripples in spacetime may have done more than just echo through the cosmos—they could have helped create dark matter itself. New research suggests that faint, ancient gravitational waves might have transformed into particles that eventually became the invisible substance shaping galaxies today. This work addresses one of the biggest unanswered questions in particle physics. Everything we can see, including planets, stars, and life on Earth, is made of visible matter, yet this accounts for only about four percent of the universe. Most of the... [2378 chars]