04-02-2005 07:39									#1
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From Wired:

quote: A new study conducted with the help of the Earth-orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed the existence of baryons in at least two giant, intergalactic clouds of super-hot gas 150 million and 380 million light-years from our planet. The study, which appears in the Feb. 3 issue of the journal Nature, shows how certain wavelengths of X-rays emitted from a distant galaxy in the constellation Ursa Major are being absorbed by the two clouds. The absorption pattern, as detected by Chandra, is consistent with interference caused by carbon, neon, nitrogen and oxygen ions -- in other words, baryons. When the study's authors extended the number of baryons in the two clouds to account for the volume of all the intergalactic clouds in the universe, the resulting figure equaled that of the missing matter from their computer simulations. "Assuming that what we see is a standard portion of the universe, we extrapolated the data and derived the volume density (of baryons in all the clouds) -- and it's consistent with 50 percent," said astronomer Fabrizio Nicastro, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and lead author of the study.

So they found this stuff?

Off to look for "dark energy" next.

	04-02-2005 07:41									#2
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I cant wait for dark matter plates

	04-02-2005 07:55									#3
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Neither macho's nor wimps.

ie: Guaranteed to irritate both sides with their pet theories.

	04-02-2005 07:59									#4
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normal baryonic matter.

this is a part of the 5% of 'normal' matter in the universe.

	04-02-2005 08:05									#5
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Not quite.

This is stuff they haven't seen until now, which is pretty much what dark matter is. Hey, if dark matter turns out to be "normal," it's cool too.

	04-02-2005 08:07									#6
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quote: Originally posted by Seeker normal baryonic matter. this is a part of the 5% of 'normal' matter in the universe.

Well, strictly speaking the cometary halo theory postulated normal baryonic matter, albeit on a macro-cosmic scale, and hidden.

[Edit: X-post]

	04-02-2005 08:09									#7
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I bet it was the progenitors that did it...

	04-02-2005 08:22									#8
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"Only about 5 percent of the mass and energy in the universe is normal matter, the subatomic particles that make up all things visible. Scientists have no clue what the other 95 percent is, so they've dubbed part of it dark matter and the rest dark energy.

Even a good portion of the normal matter, the 5 percent slice of the overall pie, has proved elusive to spot. New observations have found some of it*."

http://www.space.com/scienceastrono...ter_050202.html

*the 'it' being the difficult to see portion of normal matter.

Dark Matter and Dark Energy are the 'other 95%' which has NOT been detected.