Saturday, May 28, 2011

She found it

Student finds universe's missing mass

Agence France-Presse



missing baryons

Stars and galaxies account for just 10% of the 'normal' matter (as opposed to dark matter or dark energy) of the universe. The remainder is predicted to exist as intergalactic filaments which the current study confirms accounts for the "missing mass".

Credit: NASA

SYDNEY: A 22-year-old Australian university student has solved a problem which has puzzled astrophysicists for decades, discovering part of the so-called 'missing mass' of the universe during her summer break.

Undergraduate student Amelia Fraser-McKelvie made the breakthrough during a holiday internship with a team at Monash University in Melbourne, locating the mystery material within vast structures in the intergalactic medium called filaments.

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