A team of researchers from the University of Innsbruck is exploring the unseen matter that dominates our universe, revealing that many of the voids that we thought were empty actually contain much of the mass of the cosmos. These voids, also called dark holes, may contain up to 20 percent of its mass, according to the new study.
Markus Haider and his team led the research, which builds upon our current knowledge of cosmic microwave radiation gained from observatories such as COBE, WMAP and Planck, as well as ground-based observatories that have successfully mapped the positions of galaxies and their dark matter over a large volume of space.
Using this knowledge as groundwork for their study, Haider used data from the Illustris project, which is a computer simulation of the evolution and formation of galaxies, in order to shed light on the mass and volume of the universe's "cosmic web."
The data showed that 50 percent of the total mass of the universe is in places where galaxies are located, which is compressed into a volume of just 0.2 percent of the universe that we observe. An additional 44 percent is located in the enveloping filaments and just six percent is in the voids, although this seemingly small number makes up a whopping 80 percent of the volume.
However, Haider and his team made an interesting discovery - a surprising amount of normal matter, around 20 percent, is likely taken into the voids by supermassive black holes that lie in the centers of galaxies. Some of the matter that makes its way to these holes is converted into energy, which is subsequently taken into the surrounding gas and leads to an outflow of matter that makes its way into space far beyond the proximity of their host galaxies.
In addition to revealing the large amount of matter stored in voids, the team's findings may also help explain why astronomers fail to see the amount of normal matter predicted by their models, something that is referred to as the baryon problem.
"This simulation, one of the most sophisticated ever run, suggests that the black holes at the centre of every galaxy are helping to send matter into the loneliest places in the universe," Haider said in a press release. "What we want to do now is refine our model, and confirm these initial findings."
The findings were published in the Feb. 24 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
