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Illustration of the space internet that found the material missing in the universe. | Credit: ESA/XMM-NEWTON AND ISA/JAXA.
Astronomers discovered a huge hot gas that links four groups of galaxies, tendons and extended 23 million light -years, 230 times the length of our galaxy. 10 times the mass of the Milky Way, this filament structure forms most of the “missing matter” of the universe, which has been searched by scientists for decades.
This is the ‘missing material’ No Specify Dark Mater, mysterious things that remain effectively invisible because they do not communicate with light (unfortunately it remains a constant puzzle). Instead, it is a “common thing” consisting of atoms consisting of electrons, protons and neutrons (together called Barryon), forming stars, planets, moons and our bodies.
For decades, the best models of our universe have suggested that one third of the Baryonic MATTER, which should be in space, is missing. This discovery of that missing thing indicates that the best models of our universe were correct. It could also reveal more about the “cosmic internet”, a huge structure, from which all the galaxies grew and collected in the previous era of our 13.8 billion old universe.
The above -mentioned space models, including the standard cosmology model, have long claimed that the missing Barryonic universe material is captured in huge gas gases lasting among the dense space pockets.
Although astronomers have previously seen these threads, the fact that they are weak meant that their light was washed away by other sources, such as galaxy and supermassive black holes. This means that the features of these filaments remained impossible.
Now, however, the team of astronomers has been able to determine the qualities of one of these filaments for the first time, which link four galaxy groups in the local universe. These four clusters are part of Shapley Supercluster – a meeting of more than 8,000 galaxies, which forms one mass structure in nearby spaces.
“For the first time, our results coincide with what we see in our main Cosmos model – something that has not been before,” said team leader Konstantino Migkas from the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands. “It seems that modeling was appropriate.”
The missing material is hot things
The newly observed thread is not just about its mass and size; It also has a stunning temperature of 18 million degrees Fahrenheit (10 million degrees Celsius). It is about 1800 times hotter than the sun’s surface.
The physician stretches diagonally through the formed super -class.
Missing Baryony Mater, discovered by XMM-Newton and Suzakas X-ray Space Telescopes | Credit: ESA/XMM-NEWTON AND ISA/JAXA. Recognition: Migkas et al. (2025), Rek Europe
The vital describing this thread was the XMM-Newton and Suzaku X-ray data that made a great team of telescopes.
Although Suzakas, Japanese Aviation and Space Exploration Agency (JAXA) satellite, the x-ray light was marked by a huge space region, the European Space Agency (ESA) ruled the XMM-NEWTON, zoomed off at x-ray points from the super-moody black holes in the seam.
“Thanks to the XMM-Newton, we were able to identify and remove these cosmic pollutants, so we knew we were looking at the thread gas and nothing more,” said team member and Bonn University researcher Florian Pacaud. “Our attitude was really successful and reveals that the thread is exactly what we expected from the best modeling of our large -scale universe.”
The team then combined these X -rays with optical data from many other telescopes.
The nucleus of the Shapley Super Class, the largest space structure in the local universe. | Credit: ESA and Planck’s cooperation / Rosat / Digitized Sky Survey
By revealing this so far undiscovered hot material connecting galaxy clusters, the tendon can help scientists understand these extreme structures and how they are connected excessive space distances.
This, in turn, could help our understanding of space internet, matter threads that acted as space scaffolds that help the universe gather in the current form.
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“This study is a great example of cooperation between telescopes and creates a new benchmark for noticing the light emanating from weak cosmic internet strands,” explained Norbert Schartel, the XMM-NWTON project scientist. “Basically, it strengthens our standard space model and approves decades that have been simulated for decades: the” missing “question can certainly be hidden in hard -to -see threads throughout the universe.”
Team study was published on Thursday (June 19) in the magazine Astronomy and astrophysics.