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Did you know that the solar system's planets are covered with "hairs of dark matter"?

That is what a new study published by NASA  with information gathered from computer simulations suggests, according to a press release.

Hence, the dark matter takes up about 27 percent of all matter and energy, while 5 percent is regular matter. The rest of it is just dark energy, which is an enigmatic form related to the "acceleration of the universe".

We think of dark matter as "fine-grained streams" of particles, which move at the same velocity when they orbit galaxies.

"A stream can be much larger than the solar system itself, and there are many different streams crisscrossing our galactic neighborhood," said Gary Prézeau, author of the study.

When these streams reach planets such as Earth, though, Prézeau says that they focus into a compact filament, or "hair," of dark matter. He feels that many of these hairs are protruding from the globe at this point or time.

The reason for this process is that when the dark matter rushes by earth, the densely focused dark matter make up the "roots" and stream outward till they reach the end of the "tips."

Locating the roots of this matter can help us to learn about their formation and existence, according to Prezeau and Charles Lawrence, chief scientist for JPL's astronomy, physics and technology directorate.

"Dark matter has eluded all attempts at direct detection for over 30 years," said Lawrence. "The roots of dark matter hairs would be an attractive place to look, given how dense they are thought to be."

With the information that they can collect from dark matter hairs, scientists can map the layers of planetary bodies, including oceans on icy moons in our solar systems.