i love it when we find mass,
it hides from us you know.......... that is till now.
some of this mass is unexpected and finding it chips away at the missing mass of the universe.
The current understanding of cosmology suggests that the Universe is dominated by dark matter and dark energy. The remaining 'normal' matter –
or baryonic matter – of which stars and planets are made, accounts for just a tiny fraction of the cosmic budget, less than five per cent. Baryonic
matter can, in principle, be detected through the electromagnetic radiation it releases. But there's a problem: the amounts of baryonic matter
detected via astronomical observations in the distant, ancient Universe and in the nearby one do not match. Astronomers have struggled to locate about
half of the baryonic matter expected to be present in the local Universe.
Read more at: phys.org...
phys.org...
Numerical simulations of the formation of cosmic structure predict that galaxies and galaxy clusters are embedded in the cosmic web, and that the
WHIM might account for most of the baryonic matter in the local Universe. This network of tenuous gas ranges in temperature from 100,000 to several
tens of millions of K and due to its extremely low density has proved very hard to detect.
Read more at: phys.org...
hard to measure and difficult to detect but large volumes of hot gas are "joining" these two galaxies
which could mean that these filaments are also distorting light as it travels through the filament
very interesting from a grav lens view point
xploder