  The universe is composed of ordinary matter (for example, stars, planets,
ourselves), dark matter and dark energy. The estimated percentage of dark
matter is about $27\%$ of the entire universe, while $5\%$ is ordinary matter
and the remaining part is dark energy. This article introduces the fundamental
ingredients that led to conjecture the existence of dark matter and to study
its properties. To this result have contributed, directly or indirectly,
numerous female mathematicians and astronomers, who we quote to give them the
right credit.
