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OK, I'm sick of politics for the moment--let' try some science

. . . because the news is really interesting.

This week, astronomers at the University of Colorado at Boulder announced that they've found about half of the infamous missing matter in the universe.

This is an old problem--at least as far as modern cosmology is concerned. If you add up all the observable matter in the visible universe (galaxies, stars, that kind of thing), you end up with only about 4% of the necessary matter required by the so-called Standard Model of Cosmology. This is baryonic matter, composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons.

This has led to all sorts of speculative creations and theories, including dark matter and dark energy, to account for the missing mass. The diagram at the side shows the current theoretical mix of baryonic matter, dark matter, and dark energy.




Dark matter (often theorized in the form of WIMPs--Weakly Interacting Massive Particles) and dark energy are pretty weird concepts, and lead to all sorts of mathematical hijinks to make all the equations balance.

Now, however, between the galaxies there seems to be a more prosaic answer:

Now, in an extensive search of the relatively recent, local universe, University of Colorado at Boulder astronomers said they have definitively found about half of the missing normal matter, called baryons, in the spaces between the galaxies. This important component of the universe is known as the intergalactic medium and it extends essentially throughout all of space, from just outside our Milky Way galaxy to the most distant regions of space observed by astronomers.

The questions "where have the local baryons gone, and what are their properties?" are being answered with greater certainty than ever before. "We think we are seeing the strands of a web-like structure that forms the backbone of the universe," said CU-Boulder Professor Mike Shull. "What we are confirming in detail is that intergalactic space, which intuitively might seem to be empty, is in fact the reservoir for most of the normal, baryonic matter in the universe."


How important is this discovery, if it pans out? Think about how it would change the pie chart above.

This is significant enough to lead to a potential rewriting of the now generally accepted inflationary theory of Alan Guth, which required the early universe to expand faster than the speed of light.

Of course, if you already know that the entire universe is only 10,000 years old, you probably won't be too excited about this discovery.

Comments

Delaware Watch said…
What ramifications does this have for the controversy about the eventual fate of the universe?

1. The universe will forever expand, never contract, and eventually all the lights will go out because gravitational forces are insufficient to make it contract.

2. There's plenty of matter and, ergo, gravitational forces (though we have a hard time seeing it) to make the universe contract, perhaps resulting in another Big Bang.

Any idea?
There doesn't seem to be any direct discussion of that yet. My initial read is that this observation doesn't change the amount of matter expected, just the type.

At the current point, the consensus is that we are still on the cusp in which the rate of expansion could fall on either side--eternal expansion or big crunch--with a bare majority holding that the value will ultimately turn out to favor expansion.
Delaware Watch said…
I'm holding out hope for the big crunch. I'd like to think there could be more cracks at conscious being.

Besides, expansion has us not going out w/ a (no pun intended) a big bang but w/ a flicker. Kind of an inglorious end for such a dramatic & (epic of all) epical voyage. But that's a poetic consideration obviously. Matter seems to be decidedly prosaic.

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