ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Dark star (dark matter)

Okay, so imagine you have a very big ball made out of tiny things called atoms. These atoms have little things inside of them called protons and neutrons.

Now, most of the time, when these protons and neutrons are together in an atom, they give off light that we can see with our eyes. But sometimes, these protons and neutrons don't make any light at all.

When that happens, we call it "dark matter". And when there's a whole bunch of these dark matter things all together, we call it a "dark star".

The tricky thing about dark matter is that we can't see it with our eyes or any of our normal instruments. We can only tell that it's there because of how it affects other things around it, like how it changes the way stars move in a galaxy.

Scientists are still trying to figure out exactly what dark matter is and how it works, but for now, we just know that it's out there, hiding in the shadows.
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