Well, some of it at least :)

An orbital x-ray telescope has found a chunk of matter in the universe whose existence had long been theorised but evidence for which had been lacking, researchers say.

The discovery made by European Space Agency's XMM-Newton telescope is part of so-called baryonic matter, which makes up less than 5% of the cosmos.

The Dutch and German research is published by the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters.

Most of the universe consists of matter and energy of an unknown nature, which astrophysicists call 'dark' and that's believed to be distributed in a web-like structure.

Dark energy, which causes an accelerated expansion of the universe after the Big Bang, accounts for some 72% the total, and dark matter, heavy particles still waiting to be discovered, accounts for around 23%, according to this theory.

That leaves just 5% to comprise normal, or baryonic, matter, the category for the protons and neutrons that compose it, and electrons.

But only a small part of this stuff has been found.

All the stars, galaxies and gas observed in the universe account for less than half of the baryons that should be there.

The new claim is based on observation of a pair of distant galaxy clusters called Abell 222 and Abell 223 located 2.3 billion light-years from earth.

Images and spectra found the two clusters are linked by a bridge of hot gas of a very low density.

Astronomers call the gas, which has a temperature of between 100,000 and 10,000,000°C, a warm-hot intergalactic medium.

The astronomers believe that such low-density gas permeates the filaments of the cosmic web around the universe.
Stroke of luck

They were able to spot this one because of its high temperature and because of a stroke of luck. The thread was luckily in the telescope's line of sight, rather than visible from a narrower angle.

"The hot gas that we see in this bridge or filament is probably the hottest and densest part of the diffuse gas in the cosmic web, which is believed to constitute about half of the baryonic matter in the universe," says lead researcher Norbert Werner of the SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

"This is only the beginning," he says.

"To understand the distribution of the matter within the cosmic web, we have to see many more systems like this and ultimately launch a dedicated space research laboratory with a much higher sensitivity than possible with the current satellites."

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In the science section Albert, you should post a link to where you read the article.

That was a very interesting read. We cannot simply keep saying that there is a massive part of the universe that is "Dark Matter" or "Dark Energy". We need to be able to break it down and say exactly what it is!.

That discovery might go some way to explaining some of the things we cannot see or measure.

I found the article on Yahoo; Space oddity: European probe finds missing matter

John.

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In the science section Albert, you should post a link to where you read the article.

That was a very interesting read. We cannot simply keep saying that there is a massive part of the universe that is "Dark Matter" or "Dark Energy". We need to be able to break it down and say exactly what it is!.

That discovery might go some way to explaining some of the things we cannot see or measure.

I found the article on Yahoo; Space oddity: European probe finds missing matter

John.

Sorry, I thought I had posted the link, but anyway, here it is.

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