So in a new revolutionary finding in our ever expanding knowledge about the universe, (ever expanding and universe, get it? :D ) two separate teams of observers, one located in France - Orsay, and led by Hideki Tanimura in the Institute of Space Astrophysics, and another in Scotland - Edinburgh, led by Anna De Graaff of the University of Edinburgh were able to find the missing matter (hint: Missing Baryons) which has been scratching minds of astronomers and astrophysicists for a while now!
So what is this baryon you speak of?
Okay first things things, what is a baryon?
A baryon is a particle that is composed of three quarks. Basically almost everything we interact with on a daily basis is baryonic. Atoms are baryonic matter. On the other hand, neutrinos and electrons are not.
For a quick definition from wikipedia
A baryon is a composite subatomic particle made up of three quarks[...]
The most familiar baryons are the protons and neutrons that make up most of the mass of the visible matter in the universe. Electrons (the other major component of the atom) are leptons.
The mystery of the missing baryons
The problem was dazzling the word of cosmology for a long time now. Based on the cosmic microwave background emanating from the birth of the cosmos, along with nuclear reactions in early Universe, the measurements of the matter were simply not adding up to the observations.
Speaking of cosmic microwave background, check out this cool illustration below of the history of the universe
So, the missing baryons dilemma was based on the fact that only 10% of the calculated baryon content was detected by prior observations of galaxies and galaxy clusters. The remaining 90% were nowhere to be found, and accounted for around 50% of the universe's missing matter.
While many theories were in place before this discovery, with some speculating that this matter is hiding within super massive black holes, others aspiring into the concept of dark-baryons (unseen baryons), and the most common (or now proven-one) was that those baryons were inhabiting intergalactic space.
As best stated by Richard Ellis, University College London:
No sweet instrument that we’ve invented yet that can directly observe this gas [...] It’s been purely speculation until now
What was found?
After observations conducted by both teams, spanning 260,000 pairs of galaxies for Tanimura's team, and over 1 million in the case for De Graaff's team, the secret to the missing baryons has finally been resolved, as they were detected as gas filaments stretching between pairs of galaxies.
This is a major breakthrough and the first such observations, according to Tanimura
this is the first detection of filamentary gas at over-densities typical of cosmological large-scale structure
In fact, relying on the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, those gas filaments measured to be much denser than normal matter. In Tanimura case, this amounted to 3 times the normal levels, and in De Graaff's case, that was 6 times.
While the numbers differ, yet per Tanimura, this is quite normal due to the difference in distances being observed.
We expect some differences because we are looking at filaments at different distances...If this factor is included, our findings are very consistent with the other group.
Significance
This finding certainly helps confirm a move in the right direction towards a better understanding of our universe, and most importantly that many of our theories, are just a proper research away to be confirmed. Calculations and observations are now matching. We learned further about matter. Dark matter is still a long way to go.
And as wonderfully explained by Ralph Kraft, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts.
This goes a long way toward showing that many of our ideas of how galaxies form and how structures form over the history of the universe are pretty much correct
Hope you found this useful, and thank you for reading through!
References:
- http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2017/10/everybody-knew-it-had-to-be-there-missing-half-of-normal-matter-in-the-universe-has-been-detected.html
- https://www.newscientist.com/article/2149742-half-the-universes-missing-matter-has-just-been-finally-found/
- http://www.iflscience.com/space/scientists-finally-found-where-half-the-missing-matter-of-the-universe-was-hiding/
- https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-milky-way-s-missing-mass-partially-found/
- https://tritonstation.wordpress.com/2016/07/30/missing-baryons/
- https://www.universetoday.com/127617/black_holes_hiding_matter/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryon
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