SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
Half the matter in the universe was missing—we found it hiding in the cosmos:
In the late 1990s, cosmologists made a prediction about how much ordinary matter there should be in the universe. About 5%, they estimated, should be regular stuff with the rest a mixture of dark matter and dark energy. But when cosmologists counted up everything they could see or measure at the time, they came up short. By a lot.
The sum of all the ordinary matter that cosmologists measured only added up to about half of the 5% what was supposed to be in the universe.
This is known as the "missing baryon problem" and for over 20 years, cosmologists like us looked hard for this matter without success.
It took the discovery of a new celestial phenomenon and entirely new telescope technology, but earlier this year, our team finally found the missing matter.
[...] But when radio waves pass through matter, they are briefly slowed down. The longer the wavelength, the more a radio wave "feels" the matter. Think of it like wind resistance. A bigger car feels more wind resistance than a smaller car.
The "wind resistance" effect on radio waves is incredibly small, but space is big. By the time an FRB ["Fast Radio Burst"] has traveled millions or billions of light-years to reach Earth, dispersion has slowed the longer wavelengths so much that they arrive nearly a second later than the shorter wavelengths.
[...] We were overcome by both amazement and reassurance the moment we saw the data fall right on the curve predicted by the 5% estimate. We had detected the missing baryons in full, solving this cosmological riddle and putting to rest two decades of searching.
Journal Reference:
J.-P. Macquart, J. X. Prochaska, M. McQuinn, et al. A census of baryons in the Universe from localized fast radio bursts, Nature (DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2300-2)
The initial results are based on six data points, FRBs; the researchers will continue to look for others.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 29 2020, @02:13PM (7 children)
> let's just invent some form of utterly undetectable matter
You are starting with a strange bias - that matter should be detectable. Why?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 29 2020, @03:05PM (5 children)
I suggest we posit that ghosts are responsible. Perfect explanation as they will be undetectable. Or maybe just declare that God did it. Problem solved. You're welcome.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 29 2020, @04:14PM (3 children)
> ghosts are responsible
> God did it.
But ghosts and God do not obey the laws of physics; for example God enables transport of information at faster than speed of light ("omniscient") and ghosts break energy/momentum conservation (telekinesis). Try again, but now give me a theory that obeys the laws of physics - or a very good explanation for why they are wrong!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday May 31 2020, @12:29PM (2 children)
>for example God enables transport of information at faster than speed of light
this is like saying that a host spies on a 100% simulated VM by placing a backdoor on it. No, you don't need to alter any rule, you are the host, the dreamer of the dream, you can roll back or forward and inspect all VM state, as the VM exists only as an abstraction in you.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Sunday May 31 2020, @01:43PM (1 child)
> No, you don't need to alter any rule, you are the host
I agree religion exists outside physics. But GP was trying to use God instead of dark matter, so I was explaining why religion is logically different to dark matter.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday May 31 2020, @02:23PM
Religion is logically different to dark matter because dark matter is just a way for the scientist to escape the fear of the unknown.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 29 2020, @04:18PM
Gah, I missed my point in GP post.
The point is, you are rejecting a perfectly reasonable theory on the basis that "we humans can't directly measure DM, apart from through these many gravitational anomalies, therefore DM *must* be wrong". That's a very anthropic view point, and one that the universe may not agree with.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 30 2020, @05:06AM
> utterly undetectable matter
Utterly undetectable except for its gravitational effects, of course, which is the way we know there's a discrepancy. Dipshit.