Mysterious bursts from space reveal the universe’s biggest secret: where its matter is hiding

The vast majority of the universe is composed of dark energy, 69% of its mass, and over a quarter is dark matter, both of which have been elusive to scientists. Although we cannot see it, we know it is there because of its gravitational effects on the visible matter that we can see and touch, which is only about 5 percent of the universe.

But even among that wee portion of the universe that we can see about half of it has been “missing.” But not anymore thanks to breakthrough research by astronomers from Caltech and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.

Bursts from space reveal where “missing” matter is hiding

Astronomers have been trying to figure out where roughly over half of the baryonic matter, protons and neutrons that make up stars, planets and us, has been hiding. A recent study published in Nature Astronomy explains that astronomers were able to detect that missing matter using fast radio bursts (FRBs).

These are brief but extremely powerful radio wave pulses coming from distant galaxies. While they only last a matter of milliseconds, they emit as much energy as the Sun in decades.

As the FRB travels through space, like with light when it passes through a prism turns into a rainbow, the radio waves get spread out into different wavelengths as it encounters matter along its journey.

Those bursts of energy “backlight” the matter that is too diffuse in the universe to be seen with the instruments we have at our disposal. This has helped the astronomers that conducted the study to see “the shadow of all baryons,” said Vikram Ravi, assistant professor of astronomy at Caltech, in a statement.

That shadow not only allowed the astronomers to know that the baryon matter was there but also roughly how much is floating between galaxies. “The FRBs shine through the fog of the intergalactic medium, and by precisely measuring how the light slows down, we can weigh that fog, even when it’s too faint to see,” says Liam Connor, assistant professor at Harvard and lead author of the study.

According to their findings the intergalactic medium contains 76% of the universe’s normal matter. Another 15% can be found in galaxy halos that extend out beyond the part that we can see. The remainder is made up of stars and cold galactic gas concentrated within galaxies.

These observations confirm the distribution that had up to now only been hypothesized by predictions from advanced cosmological simulations.

Findings will help with problems in cosmology and better understand ‘ghost’ particles

This research is only the beginning of what astronomers will be able to do using FRBs to solve problems in cosmology. Currently, Caltech is developing a new radio telescope in the Nevada desert called DSA-2000. Once up and running it will be able to find and localize up to 10,000 FRBs per year.

Not only will it help expand knowledge of the extreme blasts but it will lead to new physics beyond the standard model of particle physics. Specifically it could aid in determining the mass of neutrinos, which according to the standard model should have no mass.

However, it has be observed that these subatomic particles, often referred to as “ghosts of the universe,” have “an incredibly tiny amount” of mass.

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