The amount of dark matter in the universe is six times higher than that of normal matter, which agrees with previous measurements. But, how have they managed to get this approximation of subjects? Very easy”.
The researchers have used data from the Dark Energy Survey and the South Pole Telescope to recalculate the total amount and distribution of matter in the universe. It sounds easy, but it is the work of years.
In their investigations, the team also ddiscovered that matter was less clumped than previously thoughtso we can talk about a kind of gruyère cheese and it is not a mass of stars, planets, satellites and moons.
The Dark Energy Survey observes photons of light at visible wavelengths, and the South Pole Telescope observes light at microwave wavelengths. This means that the South Pole Telescope observes the cosmic microwave backgroundthe oldest radiation we can see, dating back to about 300,000 years after the Big Bang.
The team presented the data sets of the respective soundings on two sky maps; then they superimposed the two maps to understand the full picture of how matter is distributed in the universe.
The cosmos is becoming more accessible every day
The dark matter it is something in the universe that we cannot directly observe. We know it’s there because of its gravitational effects, but otherwise we can’t see it. Dark matter makes up about 27% of the universeaccording to CERN.
The remaining 63% of the cosmos is made up of dark energy, a hitherto uncertain category that is evenly distributed throughout the universe and is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe.
To the Dark Energy Survey still he has three years left of data to analyze, and the South Pole Telescope is carrying out a new observation of the cosmic microwave background. For its part, the Atacama Cosmological Telescope is carrying out a high-sensitivity survey of the cosmic background. With precise new data, researchers will be able to test the standard cosmological model.
In 2021, the Atacama telescope helped scientists obtain a new precise measure of the age of the universe: 13.77 billion years. Further investigation of the cosmic microwave background could also help researchers resolve the Hubble tension, a disagreement between two of the best ways to measure the expansion of the universe.
As the means of observation become more precise, this information can feed back into the great cosmological models to determine where we have gone wrong in the past and lead us towards a superior knowledge of the universe that surrounds and envelops us.
