'The Models Were Right!' Astronomers Locate Universe's 'Missing' Matter (space.com) 40
It's not dark matter, writes Space.com. But astronomers have discovered "a vast tendril of hot gas linking four galaxy clusters and stretching out for 23 million light-years, 230 times the length of our galaxy.
"With 10 times the mass of the Milky Way, this filamentary structure accounts for much of the universe's 'missing matter,' the search for which has baffled scientists for decades...." [I]t is "ordinary matter" made up of atoms, composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons (collectively called baryons) which make up stars, planets, moons, and our bodies. For decades, our best models of the universe have suggested that a third of the baryonic matter that should be out there in the cosmos is missing.
This discovery of that missing matter suggests our best models of the universe were right all along. It could also reveal more about the "Cosmic Web," the vast structure along which entire galaxies grew and gathered during the earlier epochs of our 13.8 billion-year-old universe.... The newly observed filament isn't just extraordinary in terms of its mass and size; it also has a temperature of a staggering 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius). That's around 1,800 times hotter than the surface of the sun...
The team's research was published on Thursday (June 19) in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Models of the cosmos (including the standard model of cosmology) "have long posited the idea that the missing baryonic matter of the universe is locked up in vast filaments of gas stretching between the densest pockets of space..." the article points out. But now thanks to Suzaku, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) satellite, and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, "a team of astronomers has for the first time been able to determine the properties of one of these filaments, which links four galactic clusters in the local universe."
Team leader Konstantinos Migkas (of the Netherlands' Leiden Observatory) explained the significance of their finding. "For the first time, our results closely match what we see in our leading model of the cosmos — something that's not happened before."
"It seems that the simulations were right all along."
"With 10 times the mass of the Milky Way, this filamentary structure accounts for much of the universe's 'missing matter,' the search for which has baffled scientists for decades...." [I]t is "ordinary matter" made up of atoms, composed of electrons, protons, and neutrons (collectively called baryons) which make up stars, planets, moons, and our bodies. For decades, our best models of the universe have suggested that a third of the baryonic matter that should be out there in the cosmos is missing.
This discovery of that missing matter suggests our best models of the universe were right all along. It could also reveal more about the "Cosmic Web," the vast structure along which entire galaxies grew and gathered during the earlier epochs of our 13.8 billion-year-old universe.... The newly observed filament isn't just extraordinary in terms of its mass and size; it also has a temperature of a staggering 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius). That's around 1,800 times hotter than the surface of the sun...
The team's research was published on Thursday (June 19) in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Models of the cosmos (including the standard model of cosmology) "have long posited the idea that the missing baryonic matter of the universe is locked up in vast filaments of gas stretching between the densest pockets of space..." the article points out. But now thanks to Suzaku, a Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) satellite, and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton, "a team of astronomers has for the first time been able to determine the properties of one of these filaments, which links four galactic clusters in the local universe."
Team leader Konstantinos Migkas (of the Netherlands' Leiden Observatory) explained the significance of their finding. "For the first time, our results closely match what we see in our leading model of the cosmos — something that's not happened before."
"It seems that the simulations were right all along."
Re: (Score:2)
This just seems like someone made all this up, and didn't even do a very good job at it.
I was literally about to make a comment on your post, saying this very thing... about YOUR post.
Looking in the right places for small stuff? (Score:3)
So why did you propagate the vacuous Subject? Or even dignify the vacuum in AC's so-called mind with a response? (Is there an ACs' joke for the collective vacuity?)
Regarding the story, it just reminds us that space is really big. Maybe the solution was this simple? "Look over here!"
While I'm not too surprised that we may have been looking in the wrong places with the wrong instruments, I'm actually kind of disappointed if it eliminates all the amusing speculations about dark energy and so forth. Should I d
Re:None of this makes sense (Score:4, Informative)
Also, any matter at a temp of 10E6 degrees C would be glowing like a motherfucker.
It's very, very thin. Maybe on the order of an atom or so per cubic meter. So, it may be hot. But there's not much to see.
And how would it ever get to those temperatures, anyway?
Temperature is kinetic energy. Which is ~ velocity^2. If the probability that an atom will lose energy via collisions is very low and the distances are very large, it has a long time to accelerate due to gravity or some other effect*.
*Just a moment while I re-read those web pages about the electric universe [wikipedia.org]
Packaging material (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Packaging material (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, as per the HHGG, the missing matter is the packaging material the universe came in.
Hubble Wrap?
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks for the joke though I had to search for HHGG. Though I don't remember where Douglas said that...
Everything You Know... (Score:3)
"I was right about the comet!" - Dr. ‘Happy’ Harry Cox
It's a shame that no one cares... (Score:3, Insightful)
This kinds of stuff should be front page news. But instead we get ....
intergalactic medium (Score:3)
Aside from this direct observation there's another source of evidence for a lot of matter outside of galaxies.
"The analysis revealed a striking picture: roughly 76% of the universe’s ordinary matter is spread thin in the IGM."
https://www.sciencenewstoday.o... [sciencenewstoday.org]
Japan/European (Score:2)
Thank God we greatly reduced our funding of science, so now the Japanese and Europeans can make all the science and engineering breakthroughs while we focus on getting more farming and shoe factory jobs.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Only thing doggie proved is that Peelon will roll all over the carpet after shitting it.
Like a dog.
Re: Japan/European (Score:2)
Yes, the engineering breakthroughs from intergalactic filaments will be HUGE. We must not let Iran get an intergalactic filament!
Re: (Score:2)
Studies of the night sky have changed the world. Maybe the discovery of gas tendrils won't do that, but the techniques used to discover them might. Don't forget that studies of planetary motion made indispensable contributions to the development of calculus. And calculus changed the world.
Re: Japan/European (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Thank God we greatly reduced our funding of science, so now the Japanese and Europeans can make all the science and engineering breakthroughs while we focus on getting more farming and shoe factory jobs.
Duh. Scientists, at the moment, don't pick food or make clothes for rich people, poor(er), usually less-educated, people do.
Re: Japan/European (Score:2)
"Missing" but not "Dark" Matter (Score:5, Informative)
It's well and good that they discovered tendrils of gas between galaxies. But this doesn't explain the anomalous stellar revolutions within galaxies observed by Vera Rubin and others. As I recall, those observations led to the proposal of dark matter.
TL/DR: this is "missing" matter but not "dark" matter. The latter is still unobserved, at least directly.
Re: (Score:2)
I guess one could now ask, what else does those same simulations produce that adds more mass within galactic bounds?
Re: (Score:3)
With all this 'found' matter people now need to work out the electromagnetic interactions and torsion, as well as relativistic.
It'll be a while.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe. I don't think the discovery rules out the same gas existing within galaxies.
What about (Score:3)
all the arguments that Dark Matter can't be baryonic? Why did they argue with such certainty? What assumptions were made?
Re:What about (Score:5, Informative)
This is missing matter, not dark matter. See my post above.
Re: (Score:3)
Well, dark matter is a filler for what has been missing gravitationally. But yep, I got your point and have replied there.
Re: (Score:2)
all the arguments that Dark Matter can't be baryonic? Why did they argue with such certainty? What assumptions were made?
If you are truly interested in this subject I suggest reading up on it. Here is a good place to start [wikipedia.org].
The number of reasons for knowing that this is not baryonic matter now numbers at least a dozen, but here is a starting point: good summary can be found here [stackexchange.com] which I will quote from:
The is no place for "baryonic dark matter" to hide in the early universe: the temperature and density are high enough that all baryons are strongly coupled, and so all baryonic matter is the same.
Inferences based on early-unive
Re: (Score:2)
And here I was thinking this was a discussion about total galactic mass and the gravitational behaviour of galaxies.
Re: (Score:2)
Baryonic dark matter was the first thing that was considered, and every version of it you can imagine has been studied. The "arguments" that it's not baryonic are based on all those observations that exclude various possibilities.
Just what I always expected. (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but you're not right. This is missing matter, not dark matter. See the posts above.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I read TFA, and it specifically says that this is the matter that's causing the gravitational effects that were attributed to dark matter. To me, as a layman, that means that dark matter is no longer required to make things come out right. If you don't agree, please explain why, preferably with citations so that people like me can understand it.
Here's a quote from the article:
This "missing matter" doesn't refer to dark matter, the mysterious stuff that remains effectively invisible because it doesn't interact with light (sadly, that remains an ongoing puzzle).
And there isn't a single instance of the word "gravity" or "gravitation" or "gravitational" on that page until you get to the comments and related readings after the editorial portion is done.
Maybe time to get the eyeglass prescription updated?
Re: (Score:2)
Sorry, but you're not right. This is missing matter, not dark matter. See the posts above.
Dark matter is a placeholder. And it is unfortunately named, it doesn't have to be matter of any sort. Or it can be matter, but not "dark" for whatever definition of "dark" is
So what do you think? Is dark matter not possible to be everyday old not interesting matter, does it have to be something exotic and new?
Hot or Not (Score:2)
I assume this isn't temperature in the usual sense we think of it, as while individual particles may be hot as hell, they are disbursed thinly enough to not pose a heat problem to say a spaceship. Thus, maybe this needs a more practical unit of measure of temperature that factors in density. (It may be a tricky radiation hazard, though.)
Re: (Score:3)
It is temperature in the usual sense. It's possible you think of temperature as a synonym for heat, or energy though, which it is not.
We do, in fact, have distinct units: Kelvin or Celsius for temperature, Joules for heat and energy.
Baryons? (Score:1)
What's next for dark matter theorists? (Score:2)
Does it mean that some of the scientists will now need to face reality and give up pursuing their dark matter studies, give up funding?
Re: (Score:2)
They'll move on to the study of multiverse theory.