Question: What is the universe made out of, besides atoms?

Lewis Wright answered on 6 Mar 2017:

Everyone knows Einsteins equation E=mc^2 – this says that matter is basically solid energy. Some things, like light, have energy but no mass, and so if we are talking about what the universe is made of, we can talk in terms of energy (since we can convert everything into ‘energy’).

Matter (things we can see and touch) makes up just 5% of the universe. This includes every star, every galaxy, every spec of dust and every atom of gas. Everything. So what about the other 95%?

When we look at far off galaxies we see them spinning away quite nicely, held together by gravity. Scientists can estimate how much matter there is in a galaxy by how fast it is spinning. However, when they calculate this, the galaxy is spinning faster than it should be for how much mass it has.
This means galaxies have matter that we cannot see or detect, but is real as it has a gravity that is affecting its galaxy. This is called Dark Matter, and makes up 25% of the universe.

You may know that the universe is expanding, and the speed at which is it expanding is increasing. Somehow, the universe is getting energy from somewhere to enable this speeding-up. No one knows where this energy is, where it comes from, and so is called Dark Energy. Dark energy makes up the remaining 70% of energy in the universe

It makes you realise how little we really know about the universe – we have a good understanding of about 5% of the universe – lots to go!

http://chartsbin.com/view/yuc