Something is amiss in the Universe: Cosmic accounting reveals missing light...

Something is amiss in the Universe: Cosmic accounting reveals missing light crisis

Something is amiss in the Universe. There appears to be an enormous deficit of ultraviolet light in the cosmic budget.

The vast reaches of empty space between galaxies are bridged by tendrils of hydrogen and helium, which can be used as a precise "light meter." In a recent study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists finds that the light from known populations of galaxies and quasars is not nearly enough to explain observations of intergalactic hydrogen. The difference is a stunning 400 percent.

"It's as if you're in a big, brightly-lit room, but you look around and see only a few 40-watt lightbulbs," noted Carnegie's Juna Kollmeier, lead author of the study. "Where is all that light coming from? It's missing from our census."

Strangely, this mismatch only appears in the nearby, relatively well-studied cosmos. When telescopes focus on galaxies billions of light years away (and therefore are viewing the universe billions of years in its past), everything seems to add up. The fact that this accounting works in the early universe but falls apart locally has scientists puzzled.

The light in question consists of highly energetic ultraviolet photons that are able to convert electrically neutral hydrogen atoms into electrically charged ions. The two known sources for such ionizing photons are quasars -- powered by hot gas falling onto supermassive black holes over a million times the mass of the sun -- and the hottest young stars.

Observations indicate that the ionizing photons from young stars are almost always absorbed by gas in their host galaxy, so they never escape to affect intergalactic hydrogen. But the number of known quasars is far lower than needed to produce the required light.

"The great thing about a 400% discrepancy is that you know something is really wrong," commented co-author David Weinberg of The Ohio State University. "We still don't know for sure what it is, but at least one thing we thought we knew about the present day universe isn't true."

Whether the explanation is exotic or not, astronomers will be working hard to shed light on the mystery.

I find it annoying how we are always tooting our horns saying that we know how things work/are when we have the most basic simple understanding of complex things, like the universe & the light that is emitted.

It's one thing to theorize about something but to adamantly claim we "know" is a whole other ball of wax. ((whole nother ball of wax if you prefer))

It will be interesting to find out what is causing the 400% discrepancy.

We should maybe ask Wall Thornhill.....he may have another slant.....

Well i think they've stated dark energy/matter only affect gravity?

The article mentions maybe it's somehow coming from decaying dark energy/matter. Please exxcuse me if I use energ/matter in the wrong context, as I do not understand hte clear distinction between dark eenrgy/matter. Anyway, if dark matter/energy can impact things other than gravity it may present other problems than just a light discrepancy.

I want to make a analogy to the dark matter thing. See they saw how the galaxies held together and yet when they estimated the mass it fell far short of what's required to hold things together. This is one thing that led to the theories for dark energy/matter. But this is similar to what this article is bringing up. They measured ionized hydrogen (don't ask me how they do it) and yet when they measured the UV light from known sources it fell far short of what's required to produce the ionized hydrogen.

Catch that?

Giant black hole.

Like, bigger than several galaxies.

So basically there's an unaccounted for light source out there somewhere. Interesting... very interesting.

Make that an ultra violet light source.......Electricity produces such wave lengths does it not?

Looks like the command "Let there be light!" has a few hidden functions that wee little humans have not yet figured out..

Interesting article and yet another puzzle to solve

I think the fact, that the local, older cosmos has this gap in the amount of known sources for the number of observated hydrogen but the younger cosmos far-away doesn't might be part of its solution.

It indicates, that there might be other sources for ionized hydrogen, which aren't present/active anymore in the older cosmos.

Maybe God left the porch light on so we can find our way home.

originally posted by: Rosinitiate
Maybe God left the porch light on so we can find our way home.

Or maybe this post will be read by a superior beeing, that sees our universe in all timelines at once and will be en"lighten" by your words in a way, that it changes our cosmos at present time, so that scientist can wright an article about this and you will be able to post your comment.

so, its not that there is light missing, there is actually MORE light than there should be, based on the amount of known light sources. so its not missing light, its missing light sources. am I understanding this right?

Maybe the original sources of the light have died out, and the light they produced while active is still out there bouncing around? I dunno...

It might be that more light is being absorbed than produced, therefore the 'missing' light is not missing, but is now no more?

Or, perhaps, as certain peoples have postulated over the centuries, that there is an extradimensional source for light. If, as in the example given, you're in a brightly lit room, and see only a few bulbs, then wouldn't one's next logical thought be that there was something else causing the light? Things that make you go: Hmm...

originally posted by: 3n19m470
Maybe the original sources of the light have died out, and the light they produced while active is still out there bouncing around? I dunno...

This is my guess.

However, it's not that there's directly more light now. There are more particles today then there should be, that could only have been formed by some source of radiation (i.e. light source(s)) and thus indicate that there's something we either didn't found yet or still don't understand correctly with our present models of the development of the cosmos.

originally posted by: pikestaff
It might be that more light is being absorbed than produced, therefore the 'missing' light is not missing, but is now no more?

Thinkable. Although i think, that we today understand the distribution of stars and dust within a galaxy pretty good and therefor can make good approximations about how much light we should see and how much probably is absorbed, there could be something else, that is responsible for the abscence of the "light" we miss.

But here you can only speculate of course . Maybe in the past some civilizations have build artificial suns within the orbits around wandering planets, to explore the galaxy...who knows

Hmm, I've heard an expression "virtual photons", perhaps it's them popping into existence (perhaps from another dimension of even another universe) and lighting or ionising cosmic hydrogen?

originally posted by: wildespace
Hmm, I've heard an expression "virtual photons", perhaps it's them popping into existence (perhaps from another dimension of even another universe) and lighting or ionising cosmic hydrogen?

I'm no expert but i know, that virtual particles (i.e. pairs of particles/anti-particles) dont live long enough to be detected directly. There are some effects, they can have (Casimir effect for example) but i doubt, they could interact with normal matter in such a short time frame.

a reply to: Tichy

Sounds like the universe just decided to throw some " sunglasses" on for a bit to rest it's " eyes " lol or something to that effect

I don't understand what they're saying here. They're saying there is "missing light" and then they're saying there is "extra light". Which is it? Can someone clear this up for me?

Here is a thought... what if our galaxy exists in a black hole, as some have postulated. As you approach the event horizon of a black hole, it is believed that time distorts... slows. Would it not stand to reason that this would work both ways?

Any observation of the universe from our perspective would be skewed; like looking through a peephole or binoculars backwards... the closer to the event horizon of the black hole, the more significant the distortion would be. This would explain a lot of issues... as "Why does the Universe appear to expand faster than the speed of light?"... maybe it just appears to? "Why is 98% of the mass of the Universe missing?" Maybe it isn't... the vastness just seems far greater when looking at the Universe from inside of a fisheye lens?

Just a thought...