Astronomers Detect the Most Elusive Atoms in the Universe in the Cosmic Web

Looking for the most elusive atoms is like a needle in a haystack which is the universe that holds unresolved mysteries.

A group of astronomers from Toronto University have found some exotic stuff way deep into what is the cosmic web that exists in the cosmos. These filaments link the known universe from the visible to the quantum levels or more.

Elusive Atoms in the Universe

Most galaxies do not comprise all visible light in the cosmos because about 10% of all the atoms are found, not all, reported Phys. Org.

Everything else and most atoms are in a gas form entangled in the cosmic web that is very diffused in approximately a single atom per cubic foot of space. It is so much more empty than any vacuum made on earth, noted the University of Toronto.

According to cosmologist Adam Hincks, assistant professor at St. Michael's Colleges, the gas is very thin and hardly visible. Many studying astronomies thought of it as the 'missing baryon problem', atoms are the baryons. When looking at them, it was less than expected where the glowing matter would be seen.

It took a while to find these elusive atoms, and scientists discovered the critters hiding in the vast interstellar space across the universe.

Astronomers' Discoveries

Hinck's study lead and other participants located the hot gas in the corner of the space, about 40 million light years-long filament, connecting two galactic clusters as well, citing My Droll.

The Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT), located in northern Chile, looks at the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), the oldest light in the cosmos. They used older data from the Planck spacecraft as well as more recent data.

According to their discovery, gas in the filament has a density of almost 50 billion suns, making it over 50 times more massive than our own Milky Way Galaxy. They concluded by observing how the gas in the filament scattered the CMB radiation.

Given that the filamentary gas in this system was already confirmed using the Planck data, the larger ACT sensor significantly improved the image, making the distinction between the galaxy clusters and the filament much more apparent.

This study was described and published earlier in the years by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Hinck and his collaborators from other universities were responsible for the findings.

These missing baryons were located in a set of galaxies identified by the scientists. One participant Ms. Martine Lokken has been determining how much of the gas is present in the part of the cosmic web.

She and other members used information from the Dark Energy Survey to locate over 1,000 galaxy clusters in regions of space that are likely to be enveloped by filament gas thicker and warmer than typical.

Lokken combined their extended gas signal with the data from ACT and Planck. She found evidence of gas in the filamentary patterns that extended outside the clusters in addition to the clusters themselves.

It is expected to have significant concentrations of the diffuse gas reported in Hincks' study.

The work of Hincks and Lokken with other members has tracked these elusive atoms called baryons in the cosmic filament in some galaxies of the known universe; who knows what exotic stuff can be found.