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Missing matter found in deep space
(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-21 16:40 "Dark matter has gravity. It pulls the gas in," Shull said. "This causes what I call sonic booms -- shock waves. This shock heats it to a million degrees. That makes it even harder to see." The atoms of oxygen are in a stripped-down, ionized form. Five of the eight electrons are gone. It emits an ultraviolet spectrum of light that instruments aboard FUSE and Hubble can spot, Shull said. These web-like filaments of matter are the structure upon which the galaxies form, he said. "So when we look at the distribution of galaxies on a very large scale, we see they are not uniform," Shull said. "They spread out in sheets and filaments." Some faint dwarf galaxies or wisps of matter in these structures could be forming galaxies right now, the researchers said. Shull and colleagues said these webs of hydrogen and oxygen are too hot to be seen in visible light and too cool to be seen in X-rays. |
