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Scientists have long assumed that about 40% of the universe’s visible matter – the kind that makes up everything we can see and touch – was missing, never having been detected.
Now, a team of researchers from France’s National Scientific Research Center (CNRS) say they have finally found it, hidden in the diffuse filaments of the giant cosmic web that connects galaxies. The research, published Friday in the journal Astronomy and astrophysics, revealed the missing matter after scientists examined a 20-year-old stack of data.
Hidden web
The gas filaments that make up the cosmic web are thought to connect networks of galaxies across vast voids of nothing in the universe, according to a CNRS press release. They also sometimes serve as a source of fresh material for nearby galaxies or black holes, making the web itself even more frayed and weak.
The French researchers suggest it’s because these strands of the cosmic web are so widespread and the signals they emit are so weak that they went unnoticed for 20 years even though all the data was in plain sight.
Fresh eyes
To find 40 percent of all visible matter in the universe they contain, CNRS researchers looked at the X-ray emissions of the filaments along with information on the physical arrangement of 15,000 filaments.
Through that X-ray analysis, the team was able to confirm that the filaments contained huge amounts of previously neglected hot gases – a huge fraction of the universe’s matter hidden in plain sight.
READ MORE: Has the hidden matter of the universe been discovered? [CNRS]
More on the cosmic web: Here is the first ever image of “Cosmic Web” connecting all the galaxies
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