In the Netflix series Dark Matter enables dark matter time travel and in Star Trek dark matter has been given mixed properties: sometimes it is a life form, sometimes it is the constituents of an asteroid. Also, Doctor Who has repeatedly stated in this for mankind still enigmatic material.

- Since it is an important mystery in research, it has inspired many to think. Because you see that there is an opening to some kind of new understanding. It is something that is taken that is big and important, says Anna Davour, science journalist and physicist.

- We know that dark matter dominates the gravity of the universe and if we can discover what it is, we will understand basic physics much better.

Exercising gravity - but invisible

On the dark ambient artist Lustmord's album Dark matter from 2016, the universe is given a musical soundscape through recordings of cosmic activity from outer space. But that dark matter would even have a sound, scientists are far from knowing.

For superficial purposes, dark matter does not even currently have an "appearance". Neither the naked eye nor the laboratory experiment has so far been able to discern it. Anna Davour points out that this is a frustrating point for research.

- We have become extremely good at investigating and talking about what the dark matter is not. There are lots of models how to imagine a type of matter that fits in with the physics we know - but which we still haven't discovered, she says.

- You can actually call dark matter an invisible matter. It's something that gravitates, it has gravity, but it can't be seen.

"The fictional depictions of dark matter that I like best are the ones that are farthest from what the research is really about," science journalist and physicist Anna Davour tells Culture News. Photo: Private & TT / R. Gendler via AP

"Self-consciousness of the universe"

One of those who gave the dark matter a face after all is the author Philip Pullman. In the trilogy The Dark Matter of the late 1990s and in his follow-up and not yet completed trilogy, The book of dust, dark matter forms the core of a kind of complex bond between parallel worlds.

- At Philip Pullman, dark matter gets a kind of fantasy aspect where it represents the self-consciousness of the universe. It has little to do with real research on dark matter. But it says a little about what dark matter can do: Awaken imagination and represent imagination on a symbolic level, says Anna Davour.

Dark matter has been loaded with such a strong symbolic value, but once the research reaches what it is, do you think we will be disappointed then?

- In the research world, it will be cheering whatever it is. However, there are always people who would rather have that magic and unknown and they may be disappointed. But I would like to say to them in that case that they still have their imagination, because it is not killed by knowing more.