New clues tell us the whereabouts of the missing item

We have searched the universe for many years in search of… SignalWhich explains that to us We are not alone In the infinite void. There is little that reaches us, though so far None of them were linked to another existence Intelligent civilization.

However, for some time, there has been a possibility that we are receiving these signals from billions of light-years away. The phenomenon observed by astronomers was just as hidden Signs Very low density Yet other data was collected, raising speculation about this. They appeared as Small bursts of radio waves, a millisecond long, were randomly detected in the celestial vault.. This phenomenon is called Fast radio bursts High energy (FRB for its abbreviation in English).

The origin of these remains A puzzledespite of The hypothesis of the existence of extraterrestrial life has been rejectedBecause they saw it with improving technology These signals came from all over the universe. At present, it is unlikely that there is a single species capable of covering these dimensions. The hypotheses currently being considered tend to think so They come from the evaporation of black holes or the collisions of dead stars or high-density objects.

despite of We do not understand its origin wellfast radio bursts They can give us very useful information about the universe. Especially regarding its composition, which is one of the great mysteries of our century.

In an article published this week in the magazine Sciencesresearch teams from Macquarie University and Swinburne University, report on Detection of the oldest and most distant fast radio burst found to date, which originated about eight billion light-years away.

After the big bangthe explosion that led to everythingNatural matter began to expand and interact with each other, forming the chemical elements we know. This should not be confused with dark matter, which accounts for 27% of the universe, or dark energy, which makes up to 70%. Natural matter, in turn, is responsible for the formation of planets, stars, dust, and cosmic gases.

Even if there are no witnesses to confirm the amount of matter created at that time, scientists are able to estimate this number. but, When you add up the total current mass of the universe, the numbers don’t add up. A third of this mass is misplaced at infinity.

One of the hypotheses that astronomers are considering, contrary to expectations, is that He said the missing matter could be found in intergalactic regions, They form diffuse clouds of hot gas that are difficult to detect with a regular telescope.

High-energy fast radio bursts can allow us to “see” these regions indirectlyWhich gives us a very valuable clue when it comes to solving the mystery of the missing substance.

Fast radio bursts can propagate between materials they pass through. This means that, When one of these bursts is emitted, each region of plasma it travels through slows its signal slightly.. Thanks to that, The signals they produce can be used to infer information about the cosmic environments they pass through as they travel through the universe.Including the nature of the original galaxies and the distribution of plasma in the intergalactic medium.

This fast radio burst was discovered on June 10, 2022, by CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope in Western Australia, and has been named FRB 20220610A. Their study has shed more light on the doubts raised so far regarding this type of signaling.

It is believed that The source of the explosion could have been a cluster of two or three merging galaxies, supporting current theories about the cause of its origin. The team also showed that Eight billion years is roughly the distance we can hope to detect with current telescopes..

Moreover, its discovery reaffirmed the possibility of measuring the amount of natural matter in the universe using data from fast radio bursts. In the observed results they were able to confirm that, The farther away the signal, the more intergalactic gas is detectedThis is consistent with the theoretical model used so far.

today, About 50 FRBs have been identifiedAlthough the authors suggest that we should be able to spot thousands of them across the sky, and at greater distances, The ability to use it to discover intergalactic matter, and better understand the structure of the universe.

Don’t be known:

– When fast radio bursts pass through matter, their signal fades. This means that if it came from so far away, it must have a lot of energy at its origin to be able to detect it on Earth. In this case, the cosmic event they were able to observe must have released, in milliseconds, the equivalent of the total energy of our Sun for 30 years.

References (MLA):

-Ryan Shannon. Science http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.adf2678