https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/what-is-dark-matter1/ > Physicists and astronomers have determined that most of the material in the universe is “dark matter”—whose existence we infer from its gravitational effects but not through electromagnetic influences such as we find with ordinary, familiar matter. One of the simplest concepts in physics, dark matter can nonetheless be mystifying because of our human perspective. Each of us has five senses, all of which originate in electromagnetic interactions. Vision, for example, is based on our sensitivity to light: electromagnetic waves that lie within a specific range of frequencies. We can see the matter with which we are familiar because the atoms that make it up emit or absorb light. The electric charges carried by the electrons and protons in atoms are the reason we can see. > Matter is not necessarily composed of atoms, however. Most of it can be made of something entirely distinct. Matter is any material that interacts with gravity as normal matter does—becoming clumped into galaxies and galaxy clusters, for example.