Updated

Updated · Office for Science and Society · Jul 22

CHIME Locates Missing Matter 4 Million Light-Years From Galaxies Using 2,870 Fast Radio Bursts

Updated

Updated · Office for Science and Society · Jul 22

CHIME Locates Missing Matter 4 Million Light-Years From Galaxies Using 2,870 Fast Radio Bursts

Q: Are violent 'galactic fountains' shaping the ultimate fate of our own Milky Way?

Yes. The new MIT result does not prove the Milky Way’s destiny by itself, but it strengthens the case that violent feedback processes are central to how our galaxy evolves. The study shows that much of the universe’s “missing” ordinary matter sits in extremely diffuse gas far outside galaxies, likely pushed there by energetic events such as black hole jets and exploding stars. That matters for the Milky Way because the same basic mechanisms operate here: stellar winds and supernovae drive gas out of the disk, and Sagittarius A*, the galaxy’s central black hole, has shown evidence of past outbursts and a present-day wind that is already shaping nearby gas. For the Milky Way, these “galactic fountains” help control the supply of star-forming fuel. Gas can be expelled into the circumgalactic medium, heated, mixed, and later fall back. That recycling can either trigger star formation by compressing clouds or suppress it by dispersing and heating cold gas. Over billions of years, that feedback affects how fast the galaxy forms stars, how metals are spread, and how the disk and halo develop. The Milky Way’s ultimate fate will still be set by several forces, not fountains alone. Its future merger with Andromeda, continued accretion of smaller galaxies, and the long-term behavior of Sagittarius A* will all matter. But the evidence increasingly suggests that feedback-driven outflows are not a side effect. They are one of the main regulators of the Milky Way’s long-term evolution.

3 articles · Updated · Office for Science and Society · Jul 22

Diffuse clouds around galaxies and galaxy groups hold the universe’s “missing” ordinary matter, with the gas stretching roughly 4 million light-years farther than many simulations predicted.
2,870 fast radio burst signals from CHIME were matched with galaxy positions from DESI, letting researchers trace how intervening matter smeared the bursts and separate galaxy-linked material from surrounding diffuse gas.
The result supports a picture in which black hole jets, exploding stars and other energetic processes eject matter out of galaxies more powerfully than previously thought.
More than 30 million galaxies in DESI’s survey helped anchor the analysis, and the team said the method should sharpen as CHIME detects more fast radio bursts.

Sources

Office for Science and Society5h ago

CHIME Collaboration Locates "Missing" Matter in Diffuse Galaxy Clouds

space.mit.edu5h ago

Diffuse puffs of “missing” matter surround most galaxies - MIT Kavli Institute

Gizmodo5h ago

MIT Researchers Map Universe's Missing Ordinary Matter Using Fast Radio Bursts

5 Sources

What cosmic mystery will fast radio bursts solve next after finding the universe's missing matter?

We found missing ordinary matter. Does this help us find the far more mysterious dark matter?

Are violent 'galactic fountains' shaping the ultimate fate of our own Milky Way?

Solving the Universe’s Missing Baryon Problem: How Fast Radio Bursts Reveal 76% of Ordinary Matter Hidden in the Cosmic Web

Overview

For years, scientists struggled to find all the ordinary matter, or baryons, predicted by theory but missing from observations—a puzzle known as the 'missing baryon problem.' This matter was thought to be hidden across the cosmic web in forms hard to detect. A major breakthrough came with the discovery that Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)—brief, powerful flashes of radio waves—could be used as a new tool to trace this elusive matter. By studying FRBs from distant galaxies, researchers can now map where ordinary matter is spread throughout the universe, finally solving this long-standing cosmic mystery.

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