New York, Nov 5 (IANS): Dark matter could be made of macroscopic objects, not tiny particles as previously assumed, and they could be anywhere between 55 to 1,027 grams, says a study.

If dark matter were smaller, it would have been seen in detectors in space stations or in tracks found in sheets of mica, the researchers noted.

Above 1,027 grams, the macroscopic objects would be so massive they would bend starlight, which has not been seen, they added.

They could probably be as dense as a neutron star, or the nucleus of an atom, the researchers suggested.

The scientists arrived at this conclusion as three decades of research by the physicists community yielded no evidence that dark matter is made of tiny exotic particles.

Dark matter is unseen matter and it is calculated that it makes 27 percent of the universe, compared to the five percent of the matter that can be seen.

There is a possibility that "dark matter is nothing more than chunks of strange nuclear matter or other bound states of quarks, or of baryons, which are themselves made of quarks," said Glenn Starkman from the Case Western University, Ohio in the US.

Their theory fits in the standard Model of particle physics instead of requiring new physics to explain, the authors concluded.