Scientists find the disappeared matter of the universe in the ‘intergalactic cosmic fog
Researchers have used cosmic explosions called fast radius bursts to illuminate the intergalactic medium
Astronomers have long fought to see and study diluted and dark gas and dust between galaxies, represented in the concept of this artist as blue and purple filaments in a “cosmic network”.
Astronomers have used explosions of mysterious but powerful rapid radius rapagas (FRB) to detect the “normal” missing matter of the universe for the first time.
This thing that was previously missing is not a dark matter, the mysterious substance that represents about 85% of the material universe but remains invisible because it does not interact with the light. On the other hand, it is an ordinary matter made of atoms (composed of barions) that does Interact with the light but so far only leg too dark to see.
Now, an astronomer team discovered and explained this missing daily matter by using FRB to illuminate faint structures that are chopped between us and the distant sources of this letter, but powerful radio wave explosions.
“The FRB brile through the intergalactic medium fog, and by measuring precisely how the light slows down, we can weigh that fog, even when it is too weak to see,” he said in a statement by the leader of the study team, a researcher at the center of Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian (CFA), in a statement.
How FRBS illuminate missing matter
FRB are radio wave pulses that give mere milliseconds, but in this letter time can emit as much energy as the sun radiates in 30 years. Its origins are still a mystery. This is because the short duration of the thesis flashes and the fact that only one must make them significantly difficult to track their source.
However, for some time, its potential to help “weigh” the matter among galaxies has an evident bone for astronomers. Although thousands of FRB have been discovered, not all were suitable for this purpose. This is due to Act as a matter meter between FRB and Earth, the burst of energy must have a point of origin located with a known distance from our planet. Until now, astronomers have only managed to perform this location for approximately 100 FRB.
Connor and his colleagues, including the assistant professor of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Vikram Ravi, used 69 FRB from sources at distances between 11.7 million to approximately 9.1 billion light years away. The FRB from this maximum distance, FRB 20230521B, is the most distant FRB source ever discovered.
The concept of this artist shows the light of a fast radio on his trip through the intergalactic medium. The long wavelengths, which are shown, slow down the shortest and most blue wavelengths, allowing astronomers to “weigh” the invisible ordinary matter.
Of the 69 FRB used by the equipment, 39 were discovered by a network of 110 radio telescopes located in the Valle de Caltech Radio Observatory (OVRO) called Deep Synoptic Array (DSA). The DSA was built with the specific mission of detecting and locating FRB in its galaxies of origin.
Once this had been done, instruments were used at the Hawaii Kek Observatory and in the Palomar Observatory near San Diego, the measure of the distance between the Earth and these Galaxies of Fuente FRB.
Many of the sooth frb were discovered by the matrix of square kilometers of Australia Pathfinder (Askap), a network of radio telescopes in Western Australia that has stood out in the detection and location of FRBS from IT operations.
As the FRB go through matter, the light that includes the issue is divided into different wavelengths. This is like what happens when sunlight passes through a prism and creates a rainbow diffraction pattern.
The angle of the separation of these different wavelengths can be used to determine how much issues is found in the clouds or structures that pass the FRB.
“It’s as if we were seeing the shadow of all bariones, with frb as background light,” Ravi explained. “If you see a person in front of you, you can discover a lot about them. But if you only see their shadow, you still know that they are there and more or less how great they are.”
The results of the team allowed them to determine that 76% of the normal matter of the universe lurks in the space between the galaxies, known as the intergalactic medium. They found that additional 15% is blocked in fixed diffuse halos around galaxies. The remaining 9% seems to concentrate within the galaxies, taking the form of stars and cold galactic gas.
The distribution calculated by the team agrees with the predictions delivered by advanced simulations of the universe and its evolution, but repeats the first evidence of observation of this.
The results of the team could lead to a better understanding of how galaxies grow. For Ravi, however, this is only the first step for FRB to become a vital tool in cosmology, helping our understanding of the universe.
The next step in this development can be the planned Radio CALTECH, DSA-20000. This radio matrix, which will be built in the Nevada desert, could detect and locate up to 10,000 FRB each year.
This should promote our understanding of the powerful radio wave explosions and increase its usefulness as probes of the barionic matter content of the universe.
