Merged Missing mass of the universe found?

lionking

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lionking
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Interesting article in today's newspaper. A young Aussie undergraduate looks like she might have at least helped solve the "missing mass" mystery.

http://www.theage.com.au/technology/sci-tech/amelias-summer-job-finding-part-of-the-universe-20110526-1f6h5.html

Astrophysicists have long been baffled by a belief that the universe must have a greater mass than is visible in the planets, dust and stars that make up much of what can be seen, but no way of proving it. To keep the universe together and functioning the way that is does, they estimated that about half of the required mass was ''missing''.
Ms Fraser-McKelvie found some, and her discovery will aid the development of future telescopes in Australia.
The 22-year-old aerospace engineering student, who works with the Monash astrophysicists Kevin Pimbblet and Jasmina Lazendic-Galloway, explained the solution simply.
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''If we're looking very very long distances from Earth we're detecting mass but if we're looking closer to Earth we only see about half the mass that we're expecting to see. So this is what is called the missing mass problem,'' she said.
''People have theorised that this mass has settled in filaments that extend between clusters of galaxies, so we tested and confirmed this prediction by detecting it in the filaments."
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rjh01 said:
Wait until it is peer reviewed and published in a reputable journal before you start saying problem solved or anything close to it.
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Did you read the article?

ETA Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society not reputable enough for you?
 
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lionking said:
Did you read the article?

ETA Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society not reputable enough for you?
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Yeah, OK, monthly is fine. But Women's Wear Daily is daily.
 
Damn smart alec kids. Get off my damn grass. Discover the universe will you? In my day we had a stick and ball and we were happy
 
I think it is more that they have found high temperature filaments between galaxies, it is not anywehre near the 'dark matter' proportions. They used Chandra to detect intergalactic filaments at very high temps

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/05/110524094515.htm
"It was thought from a theoretical viewpoint that there should be about double the amount of matter in the local Universe compared to what was observed. It was predicted that the majority of this missing mass should be located in large-scale cosmic structures called filaments -- a bit like thick shoelaces," said Dr Pimbblet.

Astrophysicists also predicted that the mass would be low in density, but high in temperature -- approximately one million degrees Celsius. This meant that, in theory, the matter should have been observable at X-ray wavelengths. Amelia Fraser-McKelvie's discovery has proved that prediction correct.

Ms Fraser-McKelvie said the 'Eureka moment' came when Dr Lazendic-Galloway closely examined the data they had collected.

"Using her expert knowledge in the X-ray astronomy field, Jasmina reanalysed our results to find that we had in fact detected the filaments in our data, where previously we believed we had not."
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Dancing David said:
I think it is more that they have found high temperature filaments between galaxies, it is not anywehre near the 'dark matter' proportions. They used Chandra to detect intergalactic filaments at very high temps
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Dunno. Those filaments are immense; they dwarf the galaxies in them.
 
I've read a few layman's books about the universe and it's evolution, but this is the first time I've heard of high temperature filaments. Here's a link for those interested:

http://io9.com/5700993/celestial-filaments-link-together-galaxy-clusters-into-cosmic-web

Filaments represent the universe at its most unimaginably vast and cosmic scale. Filaments link together clusters of galaxies into superclusters, and in turn even larger filaments link together these superclusters into a continuous web that represents the only relief from the endless void of empty space. The average filament can be well over 100 million light-years long.

At that sort of size, you'd really think filaments would be hard to miss, but they're surprisingly tricky even to observe. Superclusters themselves are evidence of where matter clumped together in the expansion right after the Big Bang, and filaments are collections of all the leftover gas that didn't make it into the superclusters.
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shadron said:
Dunno. Those filaments are immense; they dwarf the galaxies in them.
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In terms of dark matter the issue is the dsitribution of mass in galaxies to make for the observed rotation curves, so filaments will not do that, in that they are large but they will not cause the rotation curves. :)
 
Dancing David said:
In terms of dark matter the issue is the dsitribution of mass in galaxies to make for the observed rotation curves, so filaments will not do that, in that they are large but they will not cause the rotation curves. :)
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Could you explain that please? I thought all that was necessary was to explain the missing matter.
 
I distrust anything that describes scientists as being "baffled" about something. it creates this image of these overeducated boffins running around without a clue until this lone genius (a loose cannon who breaks all the rules) comes in and shows them what idiots they are.
 
Lamuella said:
I distrust anything that describes scientists as being "baffled" about something. it creates this image of these overeducated boffins running around without a clue until this lone genius (a loose cannon who breaks all the rules) comes in and shows them what idiots they are.
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I agree, but these findings were published in a peer reviewed journal.
 
MG1962 said:
Damn smart alec kids. Get off my damn grass. Discover the universe will you? In my day we had a stick and ball and we were happy
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I remember reading about the Manhattan Project when I was in junior high school. Reading about all the physicists working there, I pictured bespeckled, wise old men, stroking their beards. It was kind of a shock to find out they were almost all very young.

Because, you know, the young guys are always the ones with all the great ideas.
 
Hey, THERE'S the missing mass!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110527/sc_afp/australiaastrophysicsscience

snip

Undergraduate Amelia Fraser-McKelvie made the breakthrough during a holiday internship with a team at Monash University's School of Physics, locating the mystery material within vast structures called "filaments of galaxies".
Monash astrophysicist Dr Kevin Pimbblet explained that scientists had previously detected matter that was present in the early history of the universe but that could not now be located.
"There is missing mass, ordinary mass not dark mass ... It's missing to the present day," Pimbblet told AFP.
"We don't know where it went. Now we do know where it went because that's what Amelia found."
Fraser-McKelvie, an aerospace engineering and science student, was able to confirm after a targeted X-ray search for the mystery mass that it had moved to the "filaments of galaxies", which stretch across enormous expanses of space.


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So, mystery solved. Now, what are those filaments doing - pushing or pulling or both? Or neither?
 
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