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Hubble Survey Finds Half of the Missing Matter

Posted by kdawson on from the hiding-in-plain-sight dept.

esocid sends along the news that scientists believe they have found about half the missing matter in the universe. The matter we can see is only about 1/8 of the total baryonic matter believed to exist (and only 1/200 the mass-energy of the visible universe). This missing matter is not to be confused with "dark matter," which is thought to be non-baryonic. The missing stuff has been found in the intergalactic medium that extends essentially throughout all of space, from just outside our galaxy to the most distant regions of space. "'We think we are seeing the strands of a web-like structure that forms the backbone of the universe,' Mike Shull of the University of Colorado explained. '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.'"

189 comments

  1. Ether by teknopurge · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Haven't we known this for some time?

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    1. Re:Ether by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      I knew someone was going to make an ether comment. The luminiferous ether was the hypothecial medium that electromagnetic waves (including light) traveled through. It was hypothesized because, at the time, there were no known waves that traveled without a medium. However, the ether was disproven, and it was shown that EM waves travel without a medium. What's mentioned in the article is not ether.

    2. Re:Ether by Lunix+Nutcase · · Score: 0

      Who modded this up? The ether isn't what the article is talking about. The ods are doing an even more horrible job than normal.

    3. Re:Ether by CowboyNealOption · · Score: 5, Funny

      The ods would do better if they remembered to take their eds every orning.

    4. Re:Ether by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Yup, Disproven.

      Because Einstein got everything perfect (cosmological constant)
      And light (which may or may not have mass) is bent by gravity (bending space time)

      Wouldn't it make more sense to go with an aether theory?

      You say light travels at the same speed regardless of direction or relative motion? I say bunk requiring some very sophisticated manipulations of time and space (Lorentz contractions) What's wrong with the 'entrained aether' theory? What, you never heard of frame-dragging?

      Gravitational lensing? How about gravity increasing the optical density of the aether?

      *puts away tin foil hat*

    5. Re:Ether by nomorecwrd · · Score: 2, Funny

      Off course!

      Isn't this the matter that strikes the shields at Warp speeds?

    6. Re:Ether by hardburn · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Not disproven, really, but fell away due to Occam's Razor. The difference between ether and this "web-like structure" is that ether was never directly observed.

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      Not a typewriter
    7. Re:Ether by lgw · · Score: 1

      I've been amuzed for years that the actual experimental equipment being built to detect gravity waves is basically the same (though far more precise) as in the Michelson-Morley experiment, but we expect to see the opposite result. In other words, the result we're looking for would have looked a whole lot like ether if found 100 years ago.

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    8. Re:Ether by scorp1us · · Score: 2

      How can you disprove EM travels without a medium, if our world is made of matter in that medium? You can of course remove the matter (create a vacuum), but that doesn't remove the medium.

      I'm not trying to be antagonistic. I'm legitimately curious.

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    9. Re:Ether by Zelrak · · Score: 1

      Except that there was a precise prediction of the effect caused by the aether and the measured effect was much, much smaller(within experimental errors of zero). So even if we detect gravity waves the effects are of a much smaller magnitude than the aether theory predicts or we would have already seen them. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson%E2%80%93Morley_experiment#The_experiments

    10. Re:Ether by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      hy s hat unny?

    11. Re:Ether by Uncle+Focker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Because Einstein got everything perfect (cosmological constant) And light (which may or may not have mass) is bent by gravity (bending space time) Wouldn't it make more sense to go with an aether theory? Not when it's wrong. I'm sorry if reality is too complicated for you, but that's your problem not ours.

      You say light travels at the same speed regardless of direction or relative motion? I say bunk requiring some very sophisticated manipulations of time and space (Lorentz contractions) What's wrong with the 'entrained aether' theory? What, you never heard of frame-dragging? No, light travels at a constant speed in a vacuum. It's speed can be different based on a whole variety of factors.

      Gravitational lensing? How about gravity increasing the optical density of the aether? Have any evidence to back this up?
    12. Re:Ether by naasking · · Score: 4, Informative

      Wouldn't it make more sense to go with an aether theory? [...] How about gravity increasing the optical density of the aether?

      The problem with ether theories is mainly the Michelson-Morley experiment. Are there ether theories which avoid the MM pitfall? Sort of. The Polarizable Vacuum (PV) is a very interesting theory along the lines of what the the above poster suggested. Instead of matter bending some mysterious "ether", as in ether theories, or bending space-time, as in relativity, matter instead affects the electric and magnetic permeability of space, which causes light to behave as if it were passing through a medium with a higher dialectric constant. From that simple assumption, we can almost rederive full general relativity (GR) wherein electromagnetic equations produce gravitational effects. Gravity is electromagnetism! PV has since been disproven, but it's still a stunningly simple way to think about gravitation in terms of electromagnetism.

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    13. Re:Ether by sir+fer · · Score: 2, Interesting

      disclaimer: I am a physics graduate. EM waves consist of an oscillating electric field (along with its magnetic counterpart)...what was that electric field doing before it started oscillating? It was probably a static field. Think about this, if I have a magnet and I wiggle it around, the disturbance in the field of the magnet travels outward from the source at the speed of light, but the field was there but merely static initially. Same deal with gravity waves. So whether the local field is static or oscillating, it was always previously existent regardless of its state. While I don't believe in the luminiferous aether either I also don't see how a field disturbance (electric, magnetic or gravitational) can travel through something that isn't there. I hope people can see what I'm talking about because while relativity and the aether don't make sense on their own, there are aspects of both theories that accurately describe reality and as is often the case in modeling reality it is not often a case of either / or, eg wave-particle duality in describing the sub-atomic world.

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    14. Re:Ether by Lorkki · · Score: 1

      Maybe it just went o'er their 'eds.

    15. Re:Ether by neomunk · · Score: 1

      I think the Michelson-Morley experiment fails due to it's assumption that the observation device isn't at the center of the universe. The way I look at it, the point of observation (measurement) very well COULD be considered the center of the universe. Pardon my non-university foolishness, but don't waveforms collapse outward from the point of measurement?

      Not that I'm an outspoken advocate of aether theory or anything, I've just been bugged by that little thought since high school, and this seemed like a good time to bring it up and run it by people who might actually have a clue.

    16. Re:Ether by actionbastard · · Score: 1

      In order for it to be considered in the astronomical sense, it's spelled æther.

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    17. Re:Ether by General+Wesc · · Score: 1

      It was hypothesized because, at the time, there were no known waves that traveled without a medium.

      Except the one for which they were trying to find a medium. :-)

    18. Re:Ether by treeves · · Score: 1

      What's Einstein got to do with it? The ether theory was disproven by the Michelson-Morley experiment. Einstein was 8 years old at that time - still doing poorly in grade school.

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    19. Re:Ether by AmigaMMC · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't call it ether in the strict historical/philosophical or metaphysical sense but I always knew that the "empty space" was holding matter. Why did it take so long for them to catch up?

    20. Re:Ether by TropicalCoder · · Score: 2, Interesting

      I've got a question for a physics graduate or anybody who can answer it. After reading for the thousandth time about all the ionized gasses in space, I suddenly began to wonder how many electrons were created in the Big Bang? Like - are there enough electrons for every atomic nucleus to fill it's shells - if they weren't ionized? Now, that seems improbable, because an enormous amount of matter was created after the Big Bang - created in stars and super novae. Then this matter that was created - were electrons created at the same time in proportion? ...and in the balance of things - how many electrons are there in the Universe and how many protons are there? ...and how much do all these electrons weigh? ...and all these electrons that were striped from interstellar matter to leave behind ionized gasses - where did they go? Well I would guess they are zinging along some magnetic field lines someplace, quite happy to be alive, but is there some place where they collect in huge clouds? I don't suppose that is too likely, because electrons are antisocial among themselves and stay as far apart as possible, but on the other hand, protons are like that too among their own kind, yet somehow manage to form clouds. So then you think about these huge clouds of hydrogen and helium nuclei, all longing for the company of electrons, but there are none to be found in the region - such huge imbalances must exist. Makes you wonder when matter finally conglomerates into planets and such that somehow there is suddenly just the right number of electrons available so that every single atom can fill is orbital shells. How does this come about?

    21. Re:Ether by lgw · · Score: 2, Informative

      Well, if you assume that the Earth moves through such a medium as it orbits the Sun, you can look for that, as you can tell there's a medium when you move relative to it - which was the Michelson-Morley experiment.

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    22. Re:Ether by hardburn · · Score: 4, Informative

      The universe likely has neutral charge. Also see a more detailed discussion on the subject.

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      Not a typewriter
    23. Re:Ether by hardburn · · Score: 2, Informative

      Michelson-Morley was an important part of it, but it was Einstein that finally killed it off by proving that waves and particles aren't as seperate as they appear to be, and thus ether is unnecessary. A few stodgy professors hung on for a while, but they eventually retired/died off without convincing very many of their students.

      --
      Not a typewriter
    24. Re:Ether by TropicalCoder · · Score: 4, Informative

      Thanks! I found the answer, and read some very interesting discussion in the links you provided. Interesting that though I have been reading about physics and astronomy for many years, I have never run into this kind of discussion before...

      "The electromagnetic force is so strong that if the universe had even a slight net charge, electric and magnetic fields should dominate the structure of our universe. But it doesn't -- gravity does. And gravity, believe it or not, is a very weak force. There are other effects that electric and magnetic fields would have on light, and we simply do not see these effects."

      "If a gas in ionized it simply means that some electrons have separated from the constituent atoms (or molecules) that make up the gas leaving positively charged atoms/molecules and negatively charged electron. However they are still mixed together in the same gas, the 'separation' that you assume does not exist. The positive and negative charges still mingle in the same space. Even if you took a very small volume (the size of a grain of sand) of an ionized gas the overall charge is still neutral."

    25. Re:Ether by Iamthecheese · · Score: 0, Flamebait

      I am a nerd who has trouble in most social situations, and even I can see the patronizing smugness in your post. You can explain your reasoning or be known as many as "that patronizing jerk."

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    26. Re: Ether by EPAstor · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's not quite like that... Quantum states' collapse is barely real in the sense that we know it. In particular, it doesn't carry information - so the experiments we already have, which indicate that what we call collapse is a non-local phenomenon (carries faster than the speed of light, possibly instantly), don't contradict special relativity.

      Yes, you read correctly - to all our best measurements, collapse appears instantaneous, not like a propagating change in a wave.

    27. Re:Ether by BZ · · Score: 2, Informative

      Wave function collapse is a much more controversial thing than the existence or non-existence of the ether. Basically, it's the only non-unitary, non-differentiable, discontinuous part of quantum mechanics. Oh, and it violates special relativity, though that might count for less given the topic of discussion here. There are various suggestions (such as many-worlds theories) that might avoid the need for this artificial wavefunction collapse altogether.

      Back to the topic at hand, the interesting thing with special relativity is that while it was created based on the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment, it doesn't actually "explain" that experiment. It just assumes the results of that experiment, somewhat generalized (light travels at the same rate in all inertial reference frames), and then makes a wide variety of predictions that differ wildly from Newtonian mechanics, have been verified experimentally, and have nothing to do with electromagnetism (and thus are not likely to have to do with the ether).

      The two obvious examples:

        * Predictions about things like energies required to accelerate a given
            mass to a given speed. If the speed is a significant fraction of
            3*10^8 m/s, the predictions are very different from the Newtonian
            ones, and the special-relativistic predictions match experiment.
        * Predictions about time-dilation. There is a very interesting
            experiment one can do using the Mossbauer effect (in iron, say). The
            width of the absorption line for gamma rays in the iron nucleus is
            very small, so that one can measure doppler-shifts on the order of
            10^{-13} of the gamma ray frequency. That turns out to be sensitive
            enough that if you have two samples of iron at somewhat different
            temperatures easily producible in the lab (somewhat below 0 C and
            close to 100 C, say) the gamma rays absorbed by one sample are NOT
            absorbed by the other one. By moving one of the samples to introduce
            a doppler shift, one can find the exact amount of the frequency shift.
            If you then try to account for this frequency shift, it very closely
            matches the prediction one gets by applying special-relativistic
            time-dilation due to their thermal motion to the iron atoms. I
            haven't seen a decent alternate explanation for the results of this
            experiment.

      I'm not sure I've seen a decent explanation of either of those in terms of things like frame dragging...

    28. Re:Ether by Ian+Alexander · · Score: 1

      Do you have evidence that indicates the existence of a luminiferous ether but would contradict the predictions of GR? People tried to find ether for a long time.

      Without a single exception (that I'm aware of) they failed spectacularly. Move on. Michelson and Morley did.

    29. Re:Ether by tyrione · · Score: 1

      disclaimer: I am a physics graduate. EM waves consist of an oscillating electric field (along with its magnetic counterpart)...what was that electric field doing before it started oscillating? It was probably a static field. Think about this, if I have a magnet and I wiggle it around, the disturbance in the field of the magnet travels outward from the source at the speed of light, but the field was there but merely static initially. Same deal with gravity waves. So whether the local field is static or oscillating, it was always previously existent regardless of its state. While I don't believe in the luminiferous aether either I also don't see how a field disturbance (electric, magnetic or gravitational) can travel through something that isn't there. I hope people can see what I'm talking about because while relativity and the aether don't make sense on their own, there are aspects of both theories that accurately describe reality and as is often the case in modeling reality it is not often a case of either / or, eg wave-particle duality in describing the sub-atomic world. That wave is not static, it's vibrational displacement is assumed inert/static because we have no way of approximating such a minute difference in change, for now.
    30. Re:Ether by khayman80 · · Score: 3, Informative

      Not exactly... The MM experiment predicted a phase shift when the optics table was rotated. It wasn't time-dependent. The phase shifts expected by LIGO/LISA are sporadic events that should only be sensitive to huge events such as black hole creation or neutron star mergers. They won't vary with the orientation of the plane of the interferometer, and they won't be constant in time either.

    31. Re:Ether by frieko · · Score: 1

      IANAPG it was my understanding that a static field consists of virtual photons in much the same way that a moving field consists of 'regular' photons.

      I realize I'm saying that photons are made of EM fields which are made of photons, but well, they sorta are.

    32. Re:Ether by sir+fer · · Score: 1, Interesting

      I assume by "physics graduate" you mean you majored in it in undergrad. Yes indeed.

      First, as a physics graduate, you should know better than to use the phrase "believe in" when talking science. Well I was using it in the laymans sense (yes I know it sucks that words like "theory" mean different things to different people). But the results of Michelson-Morley seem to discount the idea of the ether and subsequent theory and results also lend credence to the idea that there is no luminiferous (i love that word ;o) ) aether. So i was meaning in the sense that no theory is 100% proven, it's more like a law case where the evidence stacks up to support whatever conclusion it happens to, so I don't believe in the aether because there is not much evidence for it, rather than being biased one way or another.

      Second, I suppose you haven't had much field theory (can't fault you for that), so the behavior of electromagnetic fields may seem odd. What? That a field can oscillate where there was previously no field? Any electric field extends to infinity so perhaps this superposition of fields constitutes a form of aether, but with properties different to what is normally meant from the term. I think it is wrong to throw the baby out with the bathwater, especially when it could simplify things...not saying I'm right or anything, just throwing the idea out there coz it's been brewing in my head for a long time...
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    33. Re:Ether by sir+fer · · Score: 0

      That wave is not static, it's vibrational displacement is assumed inert/static because we have no way of approximating such a minute difference in change, for now. Yes I know that, but to use a classical analogy, the water was still before a wave came along and moved it, but there was water before the wave and there will be water afterwards too. A wave has to oscillate something without moving it, so what are EM waves oscillating that wasn't there before?
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    34. Re:Ether by treeves · · Score: 1

      I'd say that was more De Broglie, Dirac, Pauli, Bohr, et al than Einstein.

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    35. Re:Ether by locofungus · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Why does wavefunction collapse violate SR? SR prohibits information traveling faster than light. The no-communication theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-communication_theorem (I'd always called this the no-signaling theorem) leads to the no-cloning theorem http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_cloning_theorem so if you like, SR "explains" the no-cloning theorem. (The no-cloning theorem still allows a cloning fidelity of 5/6. Last I saw, fidelities of 0.81 had been achieved)

      Back to the topic at hand, the interesting thing with special relativity is that while it was created based on the results of the Michelson-Morley experiment, it doesn't actually "explain" that experiment.

      Maxwell's equations (see sig) predict that light will propagate with a speed c independent of frame. Einstein had a choice, Newton was wrong or Maxwell was wrong. A non-null result from the MM experiment would invalidate Maxwell's equations.

      So, if you like, Maxwell's equations "explain" the null MM result.

      Tim.

      --
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    36. Re:Ether by orangesquid · · Score: 2, Informative

      I'm taking a grad-level course in optical properties of condensed matter, and one of the things we study is how EM propagation is slowed by atomic dipole formation in polarization from photonic fields. It would be interesting if it were the case that the vacuum could be demonstrated to have, at the quantum level, some degree of spontaneous polarization in a field, and since there's always a field (even if perhaps self-induced from uncertainty foam), you could somehow make an analogy to the concept of the aether (even though it would not have the properties of the aether). However, as far as I've studied, that's not the case, because you can't ever rid yourself of QHO's unless you have a universe with no net matter/energy (which we don't have, even if you are looking at a gauge symmetry), no uncertainty principle (but matter waves obviously exist, because you can even diffract molecules), or you can demonstrate that QM is based a flawed assumption, viz. that matter waves don't extend to infinity (but experiments with entanglement have demonstrated that assumption to be accurate to a very high degree). Of course, we don't have a solid definition of what exactly constitutes an observer, but as far as formalism is concerned, most of our results don't need one.

      And, yep, I *am* talking out my ass ;). No, actually, if it weren't early in the morning, and I weren't busy working on other things, I would go back and make the above paragraph (a) cite references, (b) use accurate and proper terminology rather than vague concepts, and (c) convey my thoughts with some rigor instead of a bunch of conjecturous statements.

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    37. Re:Ether by Muad'Dave · · Score: 2, Funny
      ...it's spelled æther.


      Only if you're Ænglish.

      --
      Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
    38. Re:Ether by FromellaSlob · · Score: 1

      Einstein didn't disprove the aether, he just described its properties and called it space-time.

    39. Re:Ether by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      Consider pure EM radiation, such as that given off by a black-body. Prior to giving off radiation, there is no electric or magnetic field. The sum over all space of the E and M fields when radiation is being given off is still zero. (Makes sense: we've created no charges and no currents, so there should be no static E or M fields.)

      Bear in mind that "the field is oscillating" isn't really a clear description. This implies that the field is the medium, but it's not. Consider waves in a medium -- say, water. If you have a tub of water, the water is the medium and the height of the surface is the analogue of the field.

      So then you might say, "this must mean the electromagnetic field has some medium that persists throughout all space -- we could call this the ether". That's where field theory comes in to answer things, and I must say I don't understand it nearly well enough to give an explanation.

    40. Re:Ether by whoisisis · · Score: 1

      About the number of protons vs electrons.

      The interesting question is, how did the
      balance between matter and antimatter
      turn out? Apparantly, a break in symmetri
      occured, and thus more matter than
      antimatter was left. At least it looks
      like that in out part of the universe.
      This is, as far as i know, still a very
      debated question.

      The number of electrons vs protons
      could be anything. It changes all the time.
      For instance, we can create electrons
      using light, and when we put an electron
      and positron together, electrons disappear.
      Therefore, the balance between protons and
      electrons can be anything.

    41. Re:Ether by lgw · · Score: 1

      I thought they would vary with the orientation, but relative to the event, not the Earth's motion around the Sun. In any case, any earlier era would have been unsurprised by "etheric shock waves" effecting this equipment in this way after a distant huge event. Special relativity would be darn hard to explain with ether, but general relativity would actually make a lot of sense, as it's back to warping the medium through which light travels.

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    42. Re:Ether by BZ · · Score: 1

      > Why does wavefunction collapse violate SR?

      Perhaps I should have been more precise. It posits a non-local effect (whether that effect can be used to transmit information or not). This is the only such effect known in physics at this time, as far as I know.

      > So, if you like, Maxwell's equations "explain" the null MM result.

      You can view it that way, sure.

      (And yes, I'm quite familiar with the equations in question; no need to point me to the sig. ;) )

  2. Ok, fess up by pauljuno · · Score: 5, Funny

    Come on, which one of you took it?

    1. Re:Ok, fess up by somersault · · Score: 5, Funny

      It was like that when I got here.

      --
      which is totally what she said
    2. Re:Ok, fess up by tverbeek · · Score: 1

      It was behind the couch all this time.

      With Jesus.

      --
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    3. Re:Ok, fess up by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm going to turn around and if its not there when I turn back around there is going to be big trouble.

    4. Re:Ok, fess up by FredFredrickson · · Score: 1

      I was on the moon...

      ...with steve.

      --
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  3. Dark Matter??? by omnichad · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Always wondered why a simple explanation like dust never took hold, and everyone started talking about invisible matter to explain what should be there.

    1. Re:Dark Matter??? by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 4, Informative

      This isn't dark matter. Dark matter shows evidence (based on its measured distribution) which is not consistent with ordinary baryonic matter.

    2. Re:Dark Matter??? by Btarlinian · · Score: 4, Informative

      Always wondered why a simple explanation like dust never took hold, and everyone started talking about invisible matter to explain what should be there.

      We know that there is some sort of matter missing due to weird graviational interactions. We also know that according our measurements of the cosmic microwave background, this matter doesn't exist, i.e., this matter doesn't interact with electromagnetic fields. That's why it's not normal baryonic matter.

      Therefore, we say that there must be dark matter. Plain old dust would have showed up in our readings of the CMB.

    3. Re:Dark Matter??? by pilgrim23 · · Score: 4, Funny

      old mother Hubble,
      looked through the rubble,
      to find all the matter was gone.
      Till 'tween galaxies bright,
      to their delight,
      they found the brayons

      --
      - Minutus cantorum, minutus balorum, minutus carborata descendum pantorum.
    4. Re:Dark Matter??? by JebusIsLord · · Score: 2, Informative

      No, it says we've been missing ionized hydrogen and helium within a certain temperature range. How about reading the article before posting next time?

      --
      Jeremy
    5. Re:Dark Matter??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      We know that there is some sort of matter missing due to weird graviational interactions. We also know that according our measurements of the cosmic microwave background, this matter doesn't exist, i.e., this matter doesn't interact with electromagnetic fields. That's why it's not normal baryonic matter. That would be one theory. Another would be that maybe, one in a billion chance, just possibly our confidence in our marvelous understanding of gravitational interactions and/or CMB is hopelessly misplaced. Hey, it could happen.
    6. Re:Dark Matter??? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      i.e. dust. Sparse particles of some kind. I didn't say it was "solid" dust.

    7. Re:Dark Matter??? by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 1

      Isn't ionized hydrogen (hydrogen missing it's electron) just.... a proton? A proton, floating in space? Can't we just say that protons are nothing more than ionized hydrogen?

      --
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    8. Re:Dark Matter??? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well, dust is not dark matter. There's other matter besides baryonic matter. There's a great picture on wikipedia that 'shows' dark matter. The debate on dark matter is how much it exists and its exact nature, not whether it exists.

      --
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    9. Re:Dark Matter??? by omnichad · · Score: 2, Informative

      Poor neutron...

    10. Re:Dark Matter??? by QuantumFlux · · Score: 3, Funny

      "brayons"?

      Are those like crayons for donkeys?

    11. Re:Dark Matter??? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Exactly what I was saying. More things that were supposed to be dark matter that turned out to be pretty ordinary matter. Maybe I'm crazy, but the universe would make a lot more sense if we can explain away dark matter entirely.

    12. Re:Dark Matter??? by 2short · · Score: 1

      You did say: "Dark Matter???"

      To which the answer is: NO, this is not the dark matter. This does not explain the dark matter. This is unrelated to dark matter.

      Which is perfectly clear if you RTFA before posting. Or even payed close attention when reading the summary. I realize this are a bit much to ask. But when you post in ignorance, and someone says, "No, RTFA" ... At that point, before you argue with them, for the love of God, RTFA!

    13. Re:Dark Matter??? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Ok, sure I did. But I think you missed the point. I wasn't saying anything was dark matter. I'm saying we found more real matter. Those generous question marks were my pokes against people who want dark matter to explain everything away when perfectly normal matter will suffice.

    14. Re:Dark Matter??? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Fine, find some sort of matter interacts gravitationally with the observable universe but not electromagnetically, and call it whatever you want when you do. We'll be over here calling it non-baryonic matter, or dark matter.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    15. Re:Dark Matter??? by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Hydrogen and helium are not dust by any definition of "dust" I've ever known an astronomer to use. Dust is, by definition, solid matter which is microscopic, but much larger than atoms. To broaden the term to include plasmas and gases would pretty much make it so broad as to be useless.

      So no, not dust.

    16. Re:Dark Matter??? by Koiu+Lpoi · · Score: 1

      You must be new here. Expecting people to read before posting is kinda like expecting YouTube comments to be insightful. Ain't gonna happen.

    17. Re:Dark Matter??? by Steve+Max · · Score: 1
      Unfortunately, we (still) can't. What we have now is basically conclusive proof that the particles that are known to exist (meaning everything that is part of the standard model) can only account for a few percent of the total energy of the universe.

      What we need now is to prove one of the theories that go beyond the standard model and include more particles. Some (like supersymmetry, technicolour and Kaluza-Klein type models) include naturally particles that can explain the "dark matter".

      Note that this article is totally unrelated to dark matter. It shows identification of "where is the baryonic matter", or "what happened to all the hydrogen we know existed at the reionization epoch". Nothing to do with new physics.

    18. Re:Dark Matter??? by Chris+Burke · · Score: 4, Informative

      More things that were supposed to be dark matter that turned out to be pretty ordinary matter.

      No, that's not true. We already knew there was "ordinary" matter we hadn't found, we knew it wasn't "dark" matter, we just didn't know where it was. Now we found a bunch of it.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    19. Re:Dark Matter??? by sir+fer · · Score: 0

      Yes. There is a not oft-heard hypothesis that what we see from the CMB is nothing more than the radiation from the expanding planetary nebula from a star that died nearby, thereby supplying all the heavy elements that are found in the solar system. And then there's the quantized red-shift poking holes in the big-bang theory...although how the universe's biggest ever black hole could have expanded past its own event horizon is beyond me. But then I'm only a physics grad.

      --
      Debian FTW ;o)
    20. Re:Dark Matter??? by Btarlinian · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Ok, sure I did. But I think you missed the point. I wasn't saying anything was dark matter. I'm saying we found more real matter. Those generous question marks were my pokes against people who want dark matter to explain everything away when perfectly normal matter will suffice.

      Except there aren't people like that. We knew this normal matter existed, we just didn't know where it was.

      Every time we talk about something new being found in the universe, someone likes to say, "Oh look at those stupid astronomers, making up stuff no one can prove. There never was any dark matter." I know that's not what you specifically said, but by bringing it into the conversation and conflating this observation with theories of dark matter, you essentially did the same thing. Your basically attempted to make other people look stupid by making an ill-informed, seemingly insightful comment. I'm rather disappointed to see that it that the mods fell for it.

    21. Re:Dark Matter??? by dreamchaser · · Score: 1

      This has zero to do with dark (non-baryonic) matter. They just accounted for half of the missing 'normal' (baryonic) matter that was thought to exist. It's still a small fraction of the total mass-energy sum of the Universe at large.

    22. Re:Dark Matter??? by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      Close. A free proton and ionized hydrogen are the same. (A proton in the nucleus of a non-hydrogen atom is different.) There seem to be different standards for when which term is used, but I usually see free protons referred to as hydrogen ions. (Obviously if you ionize hydrogen, you should call the result hydrogen ions.)

    23. Re:Dark Matter??? by slashtivus · · Score: 1

      This is not quite true. The MOND hypothesis (they are both hypothesis, since neither gives a true method of testing) suggests that our understanding of gravity may be wrong. It doesn't matter if you or I agree with it, there certainly is a lively debate about whether 'dark matter' exists.

    24. Re:Dark Matter??? by lgw · · Score: 2, Interesting

      although how the universe's biggest ever black hole could have expanded past its own event horizon is beyond me. But then I'm only a physics grad. Has it? The "diameter" of the event horizon grows linearly with mass, but an object of fixed density grows with the third root of mass, so as mass increases you'd expect the Schwarzschild diameter to grow faster than the size of the object.

      The Schwarzschild "diameter" (circumference over pi) is 4 G M / c^2, or 2.969 * 10^27 m/kg.

      The mass of the (observable) universe is about 10^53 kg.

      The Schwarzschild diameter of the (observable) universe is therefore about 3*10^10 light years, within an order of magnitude of the probable diameter of the observable universe.

      The universe as a whole is probably many orders of magnitude bigger than the observable universe, so it seems quite likely that we're all still inside that event horizon.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    25. Re:Dark Matter??? by shma · · Score: 3, Informative

      Cosmologists use the term 'dust' to refer collectively to non-relativistic matter in the early universe.

      In the most basic big bang model, there are only two kinds of matter which we consider: 'dust' and 'radiation'. All non-relativistic matter is treated as a pressureless fluid which we call 'dust', while all relativistic matter is lumped together as 'radiation' and treated as an ultralativistic fluid: one whose kinetic energy is so great that its rest energy is only a small correction to its total energy, and can be neglected (so we can treat them as if they were massless photons).

      These definitions aren't used outside of cosmology, so generally you won't hear about them in this context.

      --
      I came here for a good argument
    26. Re:Dark Matter??? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

      it's spelled braillons, and only blind telescopes can detect them.

    27. Re:Dark Matter??? by GanjaManja · · Score: 1

      "Astronomers caution that the missing baryonic matter is not to be confused with "dark matter," a mysterious and exotic form of matter that is only detected via its gravitational pull."

      "The presence of highly ionized oxygen (and other elements) between the galaxies is believed to trace large quantities of invisible, hot, ionized hydrogen in the universe.
      These vast reservoirs of hydrogen have largely escaped detection because they are too hot to be seen in visible light, yet too cool to be seen in X-rays."

      The second article is certainly great for explaining most of the technical aspects, such as how you know what light passed through before it got to your eye/lens, by observing the spectrum. The missing piece is that they must have very detailed knowledge of what the un-modified spectrum of a Quasar is, and i wonder how those became so accurate.

      Can't wait for hydrogen-powered gigantic ram-jet space engines.

      Great post.

    28. Re:Dark Matter??? by vikhik · · Score: 1

      Cosmologists use the term 'dust' to refer collectively to non-relativistic matter in the early universe. I believe he was referring to "Dust" as per the book series that starts with The Golden Compass (Northern Lights, here in Australia), which had a movie recently of the same name. In the book/movie, "Dust" is an invisible matter that can be photographed with a certain filter, the Dust comes from an interdimensional rift and is attracted to people, via their personal "daemons", which are much like external souls. If I'm wrong, forgive me, but I'm pretty sure original "Dust" poster was being sarcastic/funny. tl;dr - Read books, they good.
      --
      GENERATION 26: The first time you see this, copy it into your sig on any forum and add 1 to the generation. Social exper
    29. Re:Dark Matter??? by 2short · · Score: 1

      RTFA! RTFA! RTFA!

      Nobody has ever thought dark matter explained anything at all that this discovery explains instead. "Perfectly normal" matter does not explain anything that dark matter explains, assuming by "perfectly normal" you mean "baryonic". That is, in essence, the only thing we actually know about dark matter at all: There are things about the universe that cannot be explained by "perfectly normal" matter. If perfectly normal matter sufficed to explain these things, we wouldn't think there was dark matter in the first place.

    30. Re:Dark Matter??? by JebusIsLord · · Score: 1

      That's one weird definition of dust. So you breathe, eat and are composed primarily of dust too, I assume. Got it. When talking to omnichad, all small bits of matter = dust.

      --
      Jeremy
    31. Re:Dark Matter??? by omnichad · · Score: 1

      Wow...no. Just a convenient description of stuff floating around, very widely spaced apart - much how stirred up dust looks in my apartment when the sun shines through the window. Barely visible, which was the other reason for the convenient metaphor.

    32. Re:Dark Matter??? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      I'm not an astrophysicist, but the last I've read on the subject implied that the possibility of MOND being correct was unlikely at best, and purely specious at worst. The Bullet Cluster especially seems like it would require a great deal of explanation. As far as I know, while it's not a settled issue, the preponderance of evidence at this time supports the existence of dark matter.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    33. Re:Dark Matter??? by CheshireCatCO · · Score: 1

      Ah, I stand (partly?) corrected. I'm in planetary, which is about as far removed from cosmologists as an astronomer can get. (Seriously, we barely even see each other in the hallways.) I do work with a lot of people who research dust behavior in planetary and galactic contexts, though. :-)

    34. Re:Dark Matter??? by Wandering+Wombat · · Score: 1

      I know they're close, but does an ionized hydrogen particle (a proton) have different properties than a free particle (a proton)? IE, will one accept an electron more easily than the other?

      --
      I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
    35. Re:Dark Matter??? by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:2dfgrs.png Look at this image and then tell me again about quantized redshift.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    36. Re:Dark Matter??? by blueg3 · · Score: 1

      No, your statement was close to accurate.

      In the absence of context, an ionized hydrogen atom and a free proton are the exact same thing.

      What I really mean is that it's not like these things have some hidden "memory". If I take a hydrogen atom -- a proton and an electron -- and strip off the electron, the result is just a proton. This proton is no different from a proton that I somehow tore out of a nearby nucleus, or one that was created from other particles in a nuclear reaction. They're all just protons.

      There's still the potential for difference, since the terms are not specific. "Hydrogen" might refer only to H-1 (just a proton and an electron), but it might also refer to some mix of H-1, H-2 (deuterium) and H-3 (tritium). Obviously if I ionize the latter, I'll have protons, deuterium ions, and tritium ions, which isn't the same as just protons. Most people I know would not appreciate someone calling that "hydrogen ions", though, since "hydrogen ion" is so often used to refer to free protons.

    37. Re:Dark Matter??? by slashtivus · · Score: 1

      I think I read the same article. It looked more like 1 group proclaiming 'victory' without even review. I'm not a proponent of either, I just think it is an interesting subject. I read an article (derived from) here http://nam2008.qub.ac.uk/press/2008-09-release/ just last month, which is why I posted.

    38. Re:Dark Matter??? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      I found a rather interesting arXiv post you should read. Apparently people have verified that F = ma for accelerations several orders of magnitude below the point where Milgrom's a_{0} should have reared its ugly head. The linked article apparently shows that MOND "could not avoid introducing dark matter."

      The 'article' I read was probably a post here on /. :) One of those people who put IAAAP at the beginning of their post. I think that while MOND cannot be ruled out entirely, the possibility of it being true is becoming increasingly slim.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
  4. This proves the existance of God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We think we are seeing the strands of a web-like structure that forms the backbone of the universe

    It is a noodle like structure. FSM 1 ID 0
    1. Re:This proves the existance of God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a noodle like structure Rah-men.
    2. Re:This proves the existance of God! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It is a noodle like structure. FSM 1 ID 0
      I'm totally building a FSM church now.

      Jumps off couch.
    3. Re:This proves the existance of God! by Digitus1337 · · Score: 1

      It's actually a series of tubes.

    4. Re:This proves the existance of God! by AragornSonOfArathorn · · Score: 1

      We think we are seeing the strands of a web-like structure that forms the backbone of the universe

      It is a noodle like structure. FSM 1 ID 0 Of course! When touched by His Noodly Appendage, a chunk of dark matter becomes a new galaxy.
      --
      sudo eat my shorts
    5. Re:This proves the existance of God! by rrohbeck · · Score: 1

      But how do they handle TCP on the Intergalactic Web?
      Do the noodles transmit data FTL? Maybe they're tachyon fibers.

      --
      thegodmovie.com - watch it
    6. Re:This proves the existance of God! by zienth · · Score: 1

      Rigatoni-net!

    7. Re:This proves the existance of God! by Plutonite · · Score: 1

      What was it like, father - what was it like to see the signs, the noodles in the sky... did He.. did He SMILE upon you? Did the Holy Sauce pore through the cockpit insulation as we heard the laymen say?

      [all around the room, anxious faces lean forward in gleeful awe to hear the blessed man speak]

    8. Re:This proves the existance of God! by ill+stew+dottied+ewe · · Score: 1

      So you are claiming that HE is not intelligent?

  5. Wow by digitrev · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's actually pretty cool. I mean, the fact that matter was missing was a bit of a problem. The fact that it's in between galaxies even explains why it was missing. When it's that spread out, it's damn near impossible to see the gravitational effects of it.

    --
    Cynical Idealist
    1. Re:Wow by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Great, except the problem is that we're trying to figure out what we can measure by its gravitational effects but doesn't interact in any other way with normal matter. This is the solution to a different problem.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    2. Re:Wow by ChrisA90278 · · Score: 2, Informative

      What was found here was missing __baryonic matter__ the bigger question is still unanswered. Bryonic matter is the normal stuff we are made of but most of the "stuff" in the universe is non-baryonic and still "missing".

    3. Re:Wow by GanjaManja · · Score: 2, Informative

      (actually, they mention that regular matter is not detected via gravitational effects, they simply observed the absorption spectrum. However, when the gasses are highgly ionized, there are no electrons spinning around waiting to absorb the light, and thus the ionized Hydrogen does not yield an easily detectable absorption. (see 2nd article) "dark matter", non-regular matter, is detected via the gravitational lensing effects. )

  6. Transcript of Hubble Survey Team Findings by RealErmine · · Score: 4, Funny

    "Oh, there it is."

    I'm still waiting for them to find all the missing socks.

    --
    Dewey, you fool! Your decimal system has played right into my hands!
    1. Re:Transcript of Hubble Survey Team Findings by ozbird · · Score: 1

      I'm still waiting for them to find all the missing socks.

      I bet it's those damn "??? Profit" gnomes again.

    2. Re:Transcript of Hubble Survey Team Findings by CopaceticOpus · · Score: 1

      The missing left socks: http://www.jibjab.com/view/131152

    3. Re:Transcript of Hubble Survey Team Findings by daeley · · Score: 1

      I'm still waiting for them to find all the missing socks.

      Can't remember who pointed this out (Carlin or Steven Wright maybe?), but socks disappear in the dryer and turn into wire hangers in your closet.

      --
      I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
  7. Obligitory by Cillian · · Score: 1

    Was it behind the sofa

    --
    -- All your booze are belong to us.
    1. Re:Obligitory by xaxa · · Score: 2, Funny

      No, but it was in the last place they looked.

    2. Re:Obligitory by Nethemas+the+Great · · Score: 1

      Was it behind the sofa No, it was in my wife's purse... *ducks as a massive bag swings over his head*
      --
      Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once ... with negative results.
  8. Was it under the sofa? by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 1

    Because every time something of mine is missing it is usually under the sofa.

    --
    If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
    1. Re:Was it under the sofa? by kiwilake · · Score: 1

      i looked under my sofa. i found a pencil, 20p, a sock and a tangled web of string... hmmm a tangled web - you may be on to something

      --
      sink, swim, score and be happy :D
    2. Re:Was it under the sofa? by Friggo · · Score: 1

      I would argue that a sock is nothing more than a tangled web of string, so there might definately be something in what gp says...

  9. Missing socks... by msauve · · Score: 2, Funny

    find the missing socks, and you've found God. They're all in Heaven, you get them back when you die. All the Bic lighters, too.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    1. Re:Missing socks... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You get the lids for your biros back too.

  10. The universe has a backbone? by davidwr · · Score: 3, Funny

    Damn and all this time I thought it was an invertebrate.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  11. Oxygen and Hydrogen? by mikael · · Score: 1

    If there is ionised oxygen and hydrogen in this space, could these combine to form water?

    --
    Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
    1. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by xaxa · · Score: 1

      Presumably, but it's probably not hot enough.

      If you put them together in a balloon nothing happens until you put a match to it, and it's probably a lot colder out in this part of space than my school's science lab was.

    2. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      Yes. All of the water on the planet formed in deep space. Neat, huh?

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    3. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      Let me correct that. Water *can* form in very low temperatures but I read that most of it comes from supernovae.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    4. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by yoris · · Score: 1

      Short answer: no.

    5. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If there's oxygen, that means we can breath! -- Dan Quayle

    6. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      It's actually that the atoms are way TOO hot. The oxygens are ionized 5 times. That means that whatever pushed them out there was very violent and hot, and the atoms, even if they were to collide, would never stick.

    7. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So you are saying that because of the cool temperature, the rate of reaction will be slow.

      What if you let the balloon sit around for, oh, 14 billion years or so...

    8. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by GanjaManja · · Score: 1

      pressure's pretty darn low.
          Low pressure, low density, low temp. PV = nRT? (i don't remember how to use n and R)

    9. Re:Oxygen and Hydrogen? by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 1

      "Short answer: no."

      Wrong. gazeous oxygen will not react spontaneously, but high energy radiation will very rapidly ionize it anyway. On the other hand, ionized oxygen is so reactive it will oxydize the first non-oxydizer atom or molecule it touches, including hydrogen.

      In the universe, the only gazeous oxygen we have found yet was created by plants. Without life, it only exists as water, CO2 and various oxydes.

  12. Why invisible matter? by davidwr · · Score: 1

    Because invisible matter makes for better LOLCAT captions:

    CEILIN CAT MADE MATTR BOTH VISIBLE AN INVISABLE

    TEH INVISABLE MATTR KEEPS TEH UNIVERS FRUM FLYIN APART

    Lowercase fodder for the lameness detector.
    More lowercase fodder for the lameness detector.

    --
    Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
  13. startrek s01e02 by buttle2000 · · Score: 0
    They dove though some of that stuff on the edge of the galaxy.

    very good for your ESP.

  14. Douglas Adams's theory of missing matter by speculatrix · · Score: 4, Funny
    Douglas Adams had a theory about missing matter...

    For a long period of time there was much speculation and controversy about where the so-called "missing matter" of the Universe had got to. All over the Galaxy the science departments of all the major universities were acquiring more and more elaborate equipment to probe and search the hearts of distant galaxies, and then the very centre and the very edges of the whole Universe, but when eventually it was tracked down it turned out in fact to be all the stuff which the equipment had been packed in.

  15. Universe Half Empty/Half Full? by ireallylovelinux · · Score: 2, Funny

    Is your universe half empty or half full?

    1. Re:Universe Half Empty/Half Full? by aadvancedGIR · · Score: 1

      It looks mostly full of emptiness.

  16. I knew it... by hyperz69 · · Score: 1

    Always the last place you look. In the fridge next to the Milk...


    y way.

  17. Gene Ray was right after all! by Fortran+IV · · Score: 3, Funny

    No—it can't be true! The Hubble has managed to photograph the Time Cube! The joke really is on us...

    --
    I figure by 2030 or so my 6-digit UID will be something to brag about.
    1. Re:Gene Ray was right after all! by Anti_Climax · · Score: 1

      Christ on a cracker! Trying to read that timecube site gave me a migrane before I even had to scroll down.

      --
      Even people that believe in pre-destiny look both ways before crossing the street.
    2. Re:Gene Ray was right after all! by Taibhsear · · Score: 1

      Is it just me or do those photos make the cosmic backbone look like neurons or skin structures?

  18. like mama always said by jollyreaper · · Score: 1

    When you lose something, it'll always turn up in the last place you look.

    --
    Kwisatz Haderach
    Sell the spice to CHOAM
    This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
    1. Re:like mama always said by zienth · · Score: 1

      When you lose something, it'll always turn up in the last place you look. Sometimes I keep looking for a little while after I find what I was looking for, just to disprove that theory.
    2. Re:like mama always said by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That's similar to my reason for shaking -at least- 3 times after I take a piss.

  19. Wrong half by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    > I'm still waiting for them to find all the missing socks.

    They're in the other half, along with Ren & Stimpy.

  20. Now if we just... by beemishboy · · Score: 1

    Now if we just find half of the remaining matter every day, it will only take like . . . oh wait. Dang.

  21. Intersteller Travel Ho! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    So now Bussard ramjet's are much more feasible because of all the extra fuel. Right?

    1. Re:Intersteller Travel Ho! by smaddox · · Score: 1

      I don't think humans will be leaving this galaxy any time soon. There are enough interesting stars here to keep us busy for at least a million years.

      Hopefully by that time finding fuel will be less of a problem than it is now.

  22. Better explanation by xaxa · · Score: 1

    It's actually that the atoms are way TOO hot. The oxygens are ionized 5 times. That means that whatever pushed them out there was very violent and hot, and the atoms, even if they were to collide, would never stick. I'm quoting you so that your explanation is +2 like my incorrect assumption above.

    (Sorry for being wrong everyone. That's what happens when you stop studying chemistry at 18 and then forget stuff...)
  23. Those aren't strands of Web like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Those aren't strands of Web like structures, they're neurons! It's a brain!!

    1. Re:Those aren't strands of Web like by BiggerIsBetter · · Score: 1

      Those aren't strands of Web like structures, they're neurons! It's a brain!! If it was, and we were but micro-organisms inside it, it would go a long way to explaining the big-bang... the Universe would indeed have been born.
      --
      Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
    2. Re:Those aren't strands of Web like by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If it was, and we were but micro-organisms inside it


      No, we would be much much much smaller than that.

      Galactic superclusters with minimums of millions of galaxies would approximate the size of the smallest bacterium to the largest brain. Moreover, each of the millions of galaxies would contain tens or hundreds of billions of stars, around some of which might orbit maybe a few billion organisms with reasoning brains analogous to ours. Each of our human brains have tens of billions of cells, each of which is tens or hundreds of times larger than a typical bacterium...

      Volume-wise...

      Bacterium : brain ~ 1:5e14 [for ~3 cubic micrometre bacteria, which are fairly average, and 1400 cm^3 human brains, which are very average]

      Human : observable universe ~ 1:2.3e82 [for 0.07 cubic metre humans, who would be very average, and an Earth-observable sphere of 28 billion parsecs in diameter]

      3 followed by 82 zeros is much more than 5 followed by 14 zeros. :-)

      The filamentary structure (like other structures in the observable universe) are pretty much homogeneous and isotropic at the largest scales (i.e., the scale of the "slice" represented in the Hubble-derived image), which is not very brain like at all. (Slices at smaller scales show small anisotropies or inhomogeneities, whereas in terrestrial brains, slices of brain matter at smaller scales show increasing isotropy and homogeneity).

      So while a largest-scale structure that looks somewhat fractal and webby or netty is interesting, it is not really analogous to the layout of brains.

  24. Exactly! by ady1 · · Score: 1

    Moreover I propose making a giant space vacuum and swiping it across the universe to end this missing matter mumbo jumbo once and for all.

  25. Re:Heh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I don't know what it's called, but I'm sure your sentence suffers from some grammatical error.

  26. Had it been a snake... by glitch23 · · Score: 1

    it would have bit us.

    The presence of highly ionized oxygen (and other elements) between the galaxies is believed to trace large quantities of invisible, hot, ionized hydrogen in the universe. These vast reservoirs of hydrogen have largely escaped detection because they are too hot to be seen in visible light, yet too cool to be seen in X-rays.

    Um, why wasn't the entire EM spectrum scanned across the heavens instead of "discrete" well-known segments like radio, x-ray, visible, IR, UV, etc.? Is it a money and time issue? Otherwise it seems that this should have been found decades ago.

    --
    this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    1. Re:Had it been a snake... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 3, Informative

      Um, why wasn't the entire EM spectrum scanned across the heavens instead of "discrete" well-known segments like radio, x-ray, visible, IR, UV, etc.? Is it a money and time issue? Otherwise it seems that this should have been found decades ago.

      Because different wavelengths require different technologies to detect. Like to detect visible wavelengths you use big mirrors and/or lenses, while to detect radio waves you use antennas, and so forth. It's not as simple as "scanning" the entire spectrum.

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
    2. Re:Had it been a snake... by iso-cop · · Score: 1

      The parent is quite right...and then some. Different pieces of the spectrum need different detectors. Further, the more depth or clarity you want for a given observation type the narrower of an area you must observe and the longer you have to observe. There is a lot of universe to view out there and just as taking a glance out the window only gives you a overall idea of what is there, so it is with stellar observations. If you want to see the tiny bugs crawling on a leaf in the tree across the yard, you need to take a close look and cannot see the rest of the yard while you do it. If you want to see those bugs on the backside of the same leaf from the window, you need an infrared detector, for example. The binoculars or microscope will not do the job of an infrared detector and vice versa.

    3. Re:Had it been a snake... by glitch23 · · Score: 1

      Because different wavelengths require different technologies to detect. Like to detect visible wavelengths you use big mirrors and/or lenses, while to detect radio waves you use antennas, and so forth. It's not as simple as "scanning" the entire spectrum.

      How is energy detected that crosses the spectrum boundaries between 2 detection methods? Seems to me there is plenty of research which can be done just by building detectors that can detect energy in the EM spectrum where there currently exists no detection mechanism. We can't say we've scanned the entire sky until that occurs.

      --
      this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
    4. Re:Had it been a snake... by Chris+Burke · · Score: 1

      How is energy detected that crosses the spectrum boundaries between 2 detection methods?

      I really don't know. I never took signals in school, so I couldn't even tell you with specificity how a radio antennae differs from a microwave antennae, other than that they are in fact different. :P

      --

      The enemies of Democracy are
  27. Evidence... by msauve · · Score: 1, Insightful

    he has exactly as much evidence as there is for the existance of gravitons or Higgs bosons or exotic dark matter.

    --
    "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
  28. Web 3.0? by amirulbahr · · Score: 1

    We think we are seeing the strands of a web-like structure that forms the backbone of the universe

    This is Web 3.0 right?

    Go ahead, Troll, Flamebait, Off Topic, take your pick.

  29. Not me! Maybe You! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Who stole the matter from the universe?

    NASA stole the NASA from the universe.

    NASA: Who me?
    Yes, you!
    NASA: Not Me, Couldn't be!

    Then who?

    Hawking stole the matter from the universe!

  30. Maybe a better lightbulb? by tjstork · · Score: 1

    Fine, find some sort of matter interacts gravitationally with the observable universe but not electromagnetically, and call it whatever you want when you do. We'll be over here calling it non-baryonic matter, or dark matter

    Wouldn't a big blob of noble gases in the galaxies and then some sort of interstellar / undiscovered physics to mute the spectra do the trick?

    I'm not an astronomer, but I thought the deal with dark matter is that it was necessary to explain the measured rotational speed of the galaxies - like, the edges travel faster than one would expect and so therefor there must be some additional mass tugging things along out on the edge of the galactic disk that we can't see. Right off the wheel, (pun intended), why couldn't you just have a bunch of standard material that you couldn't see? Maybe it doesn't get bright enough out there to illuminate it? Maybe it just never gets dense enough to do stellar formation. If you view a galaxy as a bathtub draining, with the blackhole as the drain and the whirling around the drain the galactic disk, then, if you sprinkled some little floating things on the tub, randomly (stars), then, the only things you'll see moving, in fact, would be the disk, although surely the shape of the disk would change with the overall depth of the water, even if you would not be able to see all of it. Perhaps it could be something like that?

    I mean, I find it rather unreasonable that you feel the need to invent an entirely new kind of matter. Are you that confident that you understand the makeup of something as unimaginably vast as a galaxy, so many thousands of light years away that you will never even be able to touch it?

    --
    This is my sig.
    1. Re:Maybe a better lightbulb? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      I highly recommend to you the wikipedia article on the subject. The short form is that we've covered all of the other bases with dark matter. We know that not only is there mass out there that we can't detect, there's a staggering amount of it. Most of the mass in the universe, in fact. If it were normal matter, it would be dense enough for star formation. Things behave wildly differently than they're supposed to, and short of revising our theory of gravitation in a complex and inconsistent way, we are left with a bunch of dark matter. Again, the wikipedia article is quite good, and I recommend it.

      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    2. Re:Maybe a better lightbulb? by tjstork · · Score: 1

      The short form is that we've covered all of the other bases with dark matter.

      I read it... very interesting. It seems to me though, that "covered all the bases" really means "researched as much as we think we can with the tools that we have." It's like, you can't just go out there and measure stuff, you know. A lot of it is weighing subtle things together and making a case, until someone does something really amazing and discovers that background noise on a satellite antenna is actually radiation from the big bang. That is fricking cool.

      Things behave wildly differently than they're supposed to, and short of revising our theory of gravitation in a complex and inconsistent way

      Of course, here I am the luddite, intrigued by this. I mean, what if space time isn't the flat sheet distorted like is thought... what if it is rumpled and rotating and twisting throughout the whole universe, so that, matter flows into the twists and rotations of space time and that's why things are the way they are....maybe our understanding of gravity is backwards...

      See, here's the thing. I like to make fun of astronomers because the way they do science is sort like puzzle fitting and there's a lot of intuition and guesswork and searching for clues, because, you know, you just can't go and build a universe. But, at the same time, I do actually have a remarkable appreciation for what they do. I mean, coming up with the big bang and then tying that to measurable radiation all around us, and knowing where to listen for it, because you fit the cosmology, the physics, everything together, to do something so subtle and so dramatic, wow, that just blows me a way. That hiss you hear, that's the universe being made billions of years ago. It boggles the imagination in the most delightful way.

      More funding for astronomers, that's what I say.

      --
      This is my sig.
    3. Re:Maybe a better lightbulb? by Tenebrousedge · · Score: 1

      I read it... very interesting Thank you!

      The universe is a pretty cool place, really. Although in the case of the CMBR, it was theorized to exist before it was discovered experimentally.

      what if space time isn't the flat sheet distorted like is thought Well, actually, we've been able to measure that. Here's a summary, but we're pretty sure that the universe is flat (parallel lines will never converge), to within a 2% margin of error. Neat work, that.

      I have pretty much the same sense of wonder and awe when faced with the incredible complexity of the universe. It's such an incredible, marvellous thing that we are even here to observe it.

      More funding for astronomers, that's what I say. Imagine if the United States spent half as much money on science as we are spending on this war.
      --
      Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
    4. Re:Maybe a better lightbulb? by tjstork · · Score: 1

      Well, actually, we've been able to measure that. Here's a summary [nasa.gov], but we're pretty sure that the universe is flat (parallel lines will never converge), to within a 2% margin of error. Neat work, that.


      I read that. Yeah, it could still be flat overall thought, couldn't it. In other words, the question is the general shape of the universe.

      Imagine if the United States spent half as much money on science as we are spending on this war.

      Actually, the United States spends far more on science than it does on the war. It's just that most of it is in the private sector, though.

      --
      This is my sig.
  31. no one thought of these by wardk · · Score: 1

    can they help find my car keys?

    how about all those lost socks in the dryer?

  32. And the irony is... by tjstork · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Every time we talk about something new being found in the universe, someone likes to say, "Oh look at those stupid astronomers, making up stuff no one can prove

    That statement is essentially true. The best you can ever know about the universe is by inference. Standard candles are an approximation and you aren't really able to prove anything by duplication as much as you are trying to say this is a pretty good story based on a computer model kicking out a similar result. I mean, it all sounds pretty good on paper, but I could always make a computer model of the "real killer" stabbing Nicole and Ron, and not OJ.

    --
    This is my sig.
    1. Re:And the irony is... by 2short · · Score: 1

      Thank you mister Philosophy. This is Physics, where we do not generally speak of "proving" things. But when laymen do use that word, we don't interpret it in the strict philosophical sense which can only be true in Mathematics. Rather we interpret such statements as they were obviously intended, e.g. "Oh, look at these stupid astronomers, just making up stuff; they don't really know anything". When trying to explain to someone making such a statement that they are wrong, (and an idiot), it's kind of annoying to have pedants popping up saying, "well, if you take his statement out of context, and interpret it in a way he obviously didn't mean, it's technically true." And it's downright unhelpful to the world in general to have them leave out the context and say "That statement is true."

  33. What About The Other Half.....? by IHC+Navistar · · Score: 1

    To save time, and make sure he didn't miss the kickoff with his buddies down at Cosmic Ray's Space Bar, Father Time swept the other half of the now-missing matter under the rug, so Mother Nature wouldn't find it.

    --
    Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
  34. They found ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ... my friend's missing mother!

  35. Hubble? Don't you mean XMM-Newton? by mverwijs · · Score: 1

    Not to blow my former employers whistle, but:

      * http://www.huliq.com/59000/xmmnewton-discovers-part-missing-matter-universe
      * http://www.sron.nl/ (dutch)

    Quoting:

    "A team of Dutch and German astronomers have discovered part of the missing matter in the Universe using the European X-ray satellite XMM-Newton. They observed a filament of hot gas connecting two clusters of galaxies. This tenuous hot gas could be part of the missing "baryonic" matter. Their findings are being published in Astronomy & Astrophysics."

    Disclaimer: I've no clue about astronomy.

  36. Letter... by vegiVamp · · Score: 0

    From: God
    To: Humanity

    Dear Humankind,

    Kindly cease to and desist from further reverse-engineering the universe I have built, as this is a felony under the DMCA.

    Sincerely,
    God

    --
    What a depressingly stupid machine.
  37. UWW? by Nofip · · Score: 1

    We think we are seeing the strands of a web-like structure that forms the backbone of the universe Would this be the Universal Wide Web?
  38. In other news... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I just found my keys

  39. The missing half fell... by jalet · · Score: 1

    aside of the toilet.

    --
    Votez ecolo : Chiez dans l'urne !
  40. The missing matter location is here! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well astronomers are so busy looking for the missing matter, that they forgot that
    we are actually sitting on it! That is the planet Earth. So the missing mattter hasn't
    been missing at all because it's right between our legs.

  41. Here's the ESA report: by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    http://www.esa.int/esaMI/ESApod/SEM92HSVYVE_0.html

  42. Next job by Shotgun · · Score: 1

    Good job guys. Now, can we turn that telescope around and look for something useful...like my car keys?

    --
    Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
    Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
  43. The Dragon Never Sleeps by Vanye1 · · Score: 1

    Glen Cook had an EXCELLENT novel written about 20 years ago that had the basic interstellar/galactic travel method was a weblike structure that threaded through the galaxie(s), connecting one system to another...

    Go Glen!

  44. Uh, physics is rooted in proof! by tjstork · · Score: 1

    This is Physics, where we do not generally speak of "proving" things

    It goes like this, when an astronomer tells me something about the universe, or a biologist about the earth's past, they usually put together a chain of evidence in much the same way a detective tries to fit a puzzle together. It's interesting, for sure, but, when a physicist or a chemist tells me something, most of the time it is because THEY BUILT SOMETHING USEFUL. From physics and chemistry come a wide variety of materials and devices, from motorized things of all shapes and sizes, calculating and communicating devices, really everything in industrial society.

    So yeah, you can claim that astronomy and evolution fall into the same sort of science that practical physics does, but, it doesn't. See, physics and its cousin, chemistry give us products that we can see and touch and use, while astronomy really just gives us good special effects on the History Channel and a bunch of jackasses in the back of the movie theater whining that Star Wars is silly because everyone knows that parsecs aren't the right kind of unit referred to by Harrison Ford.

    --
    This is my sig.
    1. Re:Uh, physics is rooted in proof! by 2short · · Score: 1


      My point was to agree with what I thought you were saying - that "proof" of the sort that exists in Mathematics does not exist in any Science - but to point out that it wasn't relevant here, because Astronomy is on as firm footing as any Science.

      Perhaps I did not understand your original point correctly, as I certainly haven't a clue what you're on about now. Knowledge of Astrophysics isn't as sound because you can't build stuff with it? Evolution hasn't given us tangible things (besides half of modern medicine)?

  45. And in fact... by tjstork · · Score: 1

    And in fact, the most spectacular accomplishments of astronomy are when we show that cosmological theories can be found even on good old earth, and vice versa. I present as exhibit 1 the Big Bang. the Big Bang, as I understand it, came from an application of Einstein's GR, coupled with Hubble's discoveries, all together with the insight that the math predicted that there would be some sort of radiation from the event all around us to this day. Thus, some dude puts up an antenna, discovers background noise that was inexplicable, and then makes the connection that this is indeed the radiation predicted by the various big bang theories. That's a stunning triumph.

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    This is my sig.
  46. Relativity question by Have+Brain+Will+Rent · · Score: 1

    Ok, since we're asking physics questions... If there is a physicist around here is one that has been bothering me for a while :D

    I'm ok with the concept that light recedes from a source at C, regardless of the velocity of the source. Well.... I'm ok with it as long as I think about clocks and not time, but that's another story.

    But afaik that property is reserved for photons and matter behaves as we would expect it to, namely if I'm on something moving at velocity v1 and I throw a ball away at velocity v2 (relative to myself) then the velocity of the object in the frame of reference encompassing myself, the object and an observer, is v1 + v2. And v1+v2 < C must still be true, meaning if I throw the ball in the same direction I'm moving and v1 is near C then I may have to put enormous amounts of energy into it to achieve even a small v2. While if I throw so that v2 is in the opposite direction to my motion, so its net velocity as a fraction of C drops, then it would require less energy to achieve v2. Is that true? Or do I see it recede from me at at the v2 I would expect from Newtonian laws and the energy I put into it, while the observer sees it moving at some other velocity v3?

    --
    The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
    1. Re:Relativity question by locofungus · · Score: 1

      No. If you throw a ball mass m at velocity v relative to yourself (and vhttp://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/velocity.html

      I've not actually read through that page but given who's name is in the URL I'm confident it's correct:

      Tim.

      --
      God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
    2. Re:Relativity question by locofungus · · Score: 1

      I WILL USE PREVIEW NEXT TIME I PROMISE (ok, not really ;-)

      No. If you throw a ball mass m at velocity v relative to yourself (and v<<c) then you can still use 1/2*m*v^2 to calculate its speed relative to you.

      But other (inertial) observers who think you are moving will not see the ball go v faster than you.

      http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/physics/Relativity/SR/velocity.html

      I've not actually read through that page but given who's name is in the URL I'm confident it's correct:

      Tim.

      --
      God said, "div D = rho, div B = 0, curl E = -@B/@t, curl H = J + @D/@t," and there was light.
    3. Re:Relativity question by Have+Brain+Will+Rent · · Score: 1

      Thanks for the link! And I've missed preview a couple of times myself ;)

      --
      The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
  47. correcting some misconceptions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Howdy all, Charles Danforth here, author of the paper that spawned this news story. Sorry for the Anonymous Coward post, but I'm too busy to sign up for a /. acct at the moment. The press release is a bit confusing and it isn't being helped by some of the (wrong) information being posted here.

    First of all, as has been pointed out, this isn't dark matter we're talking about here. This is ordinary baryonic matter (protons, electrons, neutrons) which makes up the 5% of the universe we understand. Dark matter is an entirely different beast (and makes up about 25% of the mass in the universe). We don't know what dark matter is, but we know a lot about what it isn't. It's definitely not dust.

    The big deal here is that, of the 5% of the universe that is baryonic (i.e. normal) matter, we can now account for about half of it. 10% is locked up in stars and galaxies. 30% is located in intergalactic space as warm neutral hydrogen while another 10% is hotter gas (ionized hydrogen). The remaining 50% is probably locked up in gas that's hotter still or is in a variety of ways currently unobservable.

    Finally, no, cosmologists don't refer to material from the Big Bang as dust.

    I'm honestly astonished and pleased to see so much interest in this out there. Thanks for taking the time to tune in.

    Charles

  48. mod parent up by gobbo · · Score: 1

    Howdy all, Charles Danforth here, author of the paper that spawned this news story. Sorry for the Anonymous Coward post, but I'm too busy to sign up for a /. acct at the moment. The press release is a bit confusing and it isn't being helped by some of the (wrong) information being posted here.

    First of all, as has been pointed out, this isn't dark matter we're talking about here. This is ordinary baryonic matter (protons, electrons, neutrons) which makes up the 5% of the universe we understand. Dark matter is an entirely different beast (and makes up about 25% of the mass in the universe). We don't know what dark matter is, but we know a lot about what it isn't. It's definitely not dust.

    The big deal here is that, of the 5% of the universe that is baryonic (i.e. normal) matter, we can now account for about half of it. 10% is locked up in stars and galaxies. 30% is located in intergalactic space as warm neutral hydrogen while another 10% is hotter gas (ionized hydrogen). The remaining 50% is probably locked up in gas that's hotter still or is in a variety of ways currently unobservable.

    Finally, no, cosmologists don't refer to material from the Big Bang as dust.

    I'm honestly astonished and pleased to see so much interest in this out there. Thanks for taking the time to tune in.

    Charles believable AC
    --
    Damn those pesky terrorists