Hubble Survey Finds Half of the Missing Matter

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.'"

Comments

Ether

[teknopurge]

Haven't we known this for some time?

Re:Ether

[Uncle Focker]

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?

Wow

[digitrev]

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.