These days, you never hear people complaining that science destroys the wonder of the world. They wouldn't dare. For a beautiful example, look at what was discovered last year. A satellite -- the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) -- confirmed one of the strangest, most wondrous proposals about the universe. It is this: that all the matter we can see, the matter that makes you and me, everything on Earth, all the planets and all the stars, all that matter accounts for only 4 percent of the matter in the universe.
Where is the rest? Why can't we see it? WMAP confirmed that 23 percent of the universe is made of "dark matter," which astrophysicists believe is made of an unknown particle. The remaining 73 percent is made of a mysterious "dark energy." Moreover, the dark matter of the universe is being stretched apart by the force of the dark energy.
In short, our universe is dark, and it is expanding. The discoveries were awarded top spot in Science magazine's Breakthroughs of the Year, 2003.