Tag Archive for 'Baryonic matter'

This artist’s conception shows denser regions of the cosmic web in blue and void areas in red. Image crdit: Jack Madden / IllustrisTNG / Ralf Konietzka / Liam Connor, CfA.

Astronomers Measure Distribution of Ordinary Matter across Cosmic Web

Jun 16, 2025 by News Staff

Astronomers have used Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) to show that more than three-quarters of the Universe’s ordinary matter has been hiding in the thin gas...

Siraj & Loeb explore the possibility that accretion flares resulting from the tidal disruption of small Oort Cloud bodies by a putative primordial black hole could power an observable optical signal that could be searched for with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time. Image credit: Sci-News.com / Zdeněk Bardon / ESO.

Does Self-Interacting Dark Matter Produce Seed Black Holes?

Jun 21, 2021 by News Staff

Astrophysical observations show that supermassive black holes exist when the Universe is just 800 million years old after the Big Bang (just 6% of its...

Our Milky Way Galaxy is surrounded by an enormous halo of plasma (seen in blue in this artists’ rendition). Image credit: NASA / CXC / M.Weiss / Ohio State / A. Gupta et al.

Milky Way’s Halo is Disk-Like and Clumpy, Study Shows

Oct 20, 2020 by News Staff

Using X-ray data from NASA’s HaloSat minisatellite, astronomers have found that our Milky Way Galaxy is surrounded by a clumpy halo of hot gases that...

Abdullah et al. determined that matter makes up about 31% of the total amount of matter and energy in the Universe. Image credit: Mohamed Abdullah, University of California Riverside.

Astrophysicists Measure Total Amount of Matter in Universe

Sep 29, 2020 by News Staff

Using data on a sample of 756 galaxy clusters identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a team of astrophysicists from the United States and Egypt...

The main part of this graphic is from the Millenium simulation, which uses supercomputers to formulate how the key components of the Universe, including the WHIM, would have evolved over cosmic time. If these filaments exist, they could absorb certain types of light such as X-rays that pass through them. The inset in this graphic represents some of the X-ray data collected by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory from a distant, rapidly-growing supermassive black hole known as a quasar. The plot is a spectrum -- the amount of X-rays over a range of wavelengths -- from a new study of the quasar H1821+643 that is located about 3.4 billion light years from Earth. Image credit: Springel et al / NASA / CXC / CfA / Kovacs et al.

Astrophysicists May Have Found Universe’s ‘Missing Mass’

Feb 18, 2019 by News Staff

About a third of the normal matter — meaning hydrogen, helium and other elements — created shortly after the Big Bang is not seen in the present-day...

A simulation of the cosmic web, diffuse tendrils of gas that connect galaxies across the Universe. Image credit: Illustris Collaboration.

Universe’s Missing Baryons Found in Intergalactic Medium

Jun 22, 2018 by News Staff

Ordinary (baryonic) matter make up all physical objects in existence, from stars to the cores of black holes. But until now, scientists had only been able...

According to Angles-Alcazar et al, up to 50% of matter in the Milky Way Galaxy may have an extragalactic origin. Image credit: NASA / JPL.

Up To 50% of Milky Way’s Matter Have Extragalactic Origin, Astrophysicists Say

Jul 27, 2017 by News Staff

A team of researchers at Northwestern University and elsewhere has discovered that — contrary to previously standard lore — up to 50% of the...

Schematic representation of rotating disc galaxies in the early Universe (right) and the present day (left). New VLT observations suggest that such massive star-forming disc galaxies in the early Universe were less influenced by dark matter (shown in red), as it was less concentrated. As a result the outer parts of distant galaxies rotate more slowly than comparable regions of galaxies in the local Universe. Image credit: ESO / L. Calçada.

Universe’s Early Galaxies Were Less Influenced by Dark Matter

Mar 15, 2017 by News Staff

New observations from ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) indicate that massive, star-forming galaxies during the peak epoch of galaxy formation, 10 billion...

This slab cut from the cube generated by the Illustris simulation shows the distribution of baryonic (normal) matter, with a width and height of 350 million light-years and a thickness of 300,000 light-years. Image credit: Markus Haider / Illustris Collaboration.

Supermassive Black Holes Transport Matter into Cosmic Voids, Astronomers Say

Feb 25, 2016 by News Staff

Cosmic voids — vast underdense regions, forming an essential feature of the cosmic web and occupying most of the volume of the Universe — could...