Question

wmap was the older mission that looked at the cosmic microwave background; it had a preferred value for the total amount of dark matter that was 24% of the critical density. how does the amount of dark matter found by planck differ from the amount preferred by the wmap data?

Answer 1

The Planck mission found a slightly higher percentage of dark matter compared to the WMAP mission, with dark matter and ordinary matter combined amounting to 31.5% of the universe's total density.

Step-by-step explanation:

The amount of dark matter inferred from the Planck mission is slightly different from that preferred by the WMAP data. While WMAP suggested that dark matter made up about 24% of the critical density of the universe, Planck refined this estimate slightly, indicating that dark matter, along with ordinary matter, accounts for 31.5% of the total density of the universe. This implies that the percentage of dark matter alone is a bit higher in the Planck data compared to WMAP's estimation, given that ordinary matter is understood to be around 4.9% according to Planck's analysis.

These small differences illustrate the enhanced precision of the Planck mission over its predecessor, but the overall picture of a universe dominated by dark energy at about 68.5%, with dark matter and ordinary matter comprising the remainder, remains consistent. These findings continue to affirm the cosmological model that has been in place since the late 1990s.