UNIVERSE'S MISSING MATTER

ASTRONOMERS HAVE FOUND THE UNIVERSE'S MISSING MATTER

For decades, some of the atomic matter in the universe had not been located. Recent papers reveal where it’s been hiding.

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Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.

ASTRONOMERS HAVE FINALLY found the last of the missing universe. It’s been hiding since the mid-1990s, when researchers decided to inventory all the “ordinary” matter in the cosmos—stars and planets and gas, anything made out of atomic parts. (This isn’t “dark matter,” which remains a wholly separate enigma.) They had a pretty good idea of how much should be out there, based on theoretical studies of how matter was created during the Big Bang. Studies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB)—the leftover light from the Big Bang—would confirm these initial estimates./.../