Avi Loeb

ended up collapsing upon itself because of its high density and making a galaxy like the Milky Way.

And the ordinary matter just fell into that gravitational potential well of the dark matter.

If there was no dark matter, if all the matter was coupled to the radiation, there would be no inhomogeneities that could seed the formation of the Milky Way galaxy.

We would not exist.

The Milky Way galaxy would not form.

Stars like the sun would not condense out of the gas of the Milky Way galaxy.

So we will not exist.

So we owe our existence to dark matter because it maintained memory of the clumpiness.

that was induced early on in the universe.

And as a result of that clumpiness, objects started forming in the universe, including the Milky Way galaxy, inside of which the sun formed, next to which the earth formed.

And so we exist on the surface of a tiny rock that was left over from the formation of the sun.

And the sun formed out of the gas in the disk of the Milky Way galaxy.

But the Milky Way galaxy as a whole would never come to fruition

unless there was dark matter seeding its growth and collapse.

And by the way, a lot of astronomers are not aware of that.

So what I'm telling you is really a process that is underappreciated.

So in fact, we owe our cosmic roots to dark matter.

Without dark matter, we wouldn't exist.

But we don't know what it is, by the way.

We don't know who to thank.