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India Today
4 days ago
- Science
- India Today
Scientists finally find the universe's missing matter. It was hiding in plain space
The universe has two kinds of matter. There is invisible dark matter, known only because of its gravitational effects on a grand scale. And there is ordinary matter such as gas, dust, stars, planets and earthly things like cookie dough and estimate that ordinary matter makes up only about 15% of all matter, but have long struggled to document where all of it is located, with about half unaccounted for. With the help of powerful bursts of radio waves emanating from 69 locations in the cosmos, researchers now have found the "missing" sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. It was hiding primarily as thinly distributed gas spread out in the vast expanses between galaxies and was detected thanks to the effect the matter has on the radio waves traveling through space, the researchers said. This tenuous gas comprises the intergalactic medium, sort of a fog between previously had determined the total amount of ordinary matter using a calculation involving light observed that was left over from the Big Bang event roughly 13.8 billion years ago that initiated the universe. But they could not actually find half of this matter."So the question we've been grappling with was: Where is it hiding? The answer appears to be: in a diffuse wispy cosmic web, well away from galaxies," said Harvard University astronomy professor Liam Connor, lead author of the study published on Monday in the journal Nature researchers found that a smaller slice of the missing matter resides in the halos of diffuse material surrounding galaxies, including our Milky matter is composed of baryons, which are the subatomic particles protons and neutrons needed to build atoms."People, planets and stars are made of baryons. Dark matter, on the other hand, is a mysterious substance that makes up the bulk of the matter in the universe. We do not know what new particle or substance makes up dark matter. We know exactly what the ordinary matter is, we just didn't know where it was," Connor how did so much ordinary matter end up in the middle of nowhere? Vast amounts of gas are ejected from galaxies when massive stars explode in supernovas or when supermassive black holes inside galaxies "burp," expelling material after consuming stars or gas."If the universe were a more boring place, or the laws of physics were different, you might find that ordinary matter would all fall into galaxies, cool down, form stars, until every proton and neutron were a part of a star. But that's not what happens," Connor these violent physical processes are sloshing ordinary matter around across immense distances and consigning it to the cosmic wilderness. This gas is not in its usual state but rather in the form of plasma, with its electrons and protons mechanism used to detect and measure the missing ordinary matter involved phenomena called fast radio bursts, or FRBs - powerful pulses of radio waves emanating from faraway points in the universe. While their exact cause remains mysterious, a leading hypothesis is that they are produced by highly magnetized neutron stars, compact stellar embers left over after a massive star dies in a supernova light in radio wave frequencies travels from the source of the FRBs to Earth, it becomes dispersed into different wavelengths, just as a prism turns sunlight into a rainbow. The degree of this dispersion depends on how much matter is in the light's path, providing the mechanism for pinpointing and measuring matter where it otherwise would remain used radio waves traveling from 69 FRBs, 39 of which were discovered using a network of 110 telescopes located at Caltech's Owens Valley Radio Observatory near Bishop, California, called the Deep Synoptic Array. The remaining 30 were discovered using other FRBs were located at distances up to 9.1 billion light-years from Earth, the farthest of these on record. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).advertisementWith all the ordinary matter now accounted for, the researchers were able to determine its distribution. About 76% resides in intergalactic space, about 15% in galaxy halos and the remaining 9% concentrated within galaxies, primarily as stars or gas."We can now move on to even more important mysteries regarding the ordinary matter in the universe," Connor said. "And beyond that: what is the nature of dark matter and why is it so difficult to measure directly?"
Reuters
07-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Germany finance regulator: banks strong but uncertainty high
The logo of Germany's Federal Financial Supervisory Authority BaFin (Bundesanstalt fuer Finanzdienstleistungsaufsicht) is pictured outside of an office building of the BaFin in Bonn, Germany, April 15, 2019. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab FRANKFURT, May 7 (Reuters) - Mark Branson, the president of Germany's bank watchdog BaFin, said on Wednesday that the nation's financial firms were in a strong position but that uncertainty would remain extremely high. "The possibility that problems in the non-banking sector have an impact on banks cannot be ruled out just because we have weathered the turbulence well so far," Branson said. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. Reporting by Tom Sims and Frank Siebelt, Editing by Rachel More Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab Share X Facebook Linkedin Email Link Purchase Licensing Rights
Reuters
06-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Nigeria's Renaissance halts oil output via pipeline after spill
YENAGOA, Nigeria, May 6 (Reuters) - Nigeria's Renaissance Africa Energy Co. Ltd has halted oil shipments via its Okordia-Rumuekpe pipeline in the coastal Rivers state following a spill, the independent oil firm said on Tuesday. The pipeline, which transports crude oil south to the Rumuekpe manifold for export via the Bonny terminal, experienced the spill in the early hours of Monday in Ikata community in the Ahoada East district of the state, according to the Youths and Environmental Advocacy Centre (YEAC-Nigeria). The environmental group's volunteer network initially detected the spill. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. Renaissance, owner of a former Shell onshore subsidiary which operates the pipeline, has halted production into the pipeline and taken measures to minimize potential environmental damage, a spokesperson said in a statement. While Renaissance did not disclose the cause or scale of the spill, YEAC-Nigeria said it was likely due to third-party interference, with crude oil spreading into the surrounding environment. Renaissance has notified government regulators and is coordinating a joint investigation with regulatory bodies and the local community. Persistent oil spills and pipeline vandalism plague Nigeria's oil-rich Niger River delta, causing pollution that harms local communities and ecosystems, and frequently disrupting oil production. Volunteers who visited the site of the Okordia-Rumuekpe spill found evidence of excavation and vandalism on the pipeline, said Fyneface Dumnamene Fyneface, a YEAC-Nigeria director.
Reuters
06-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
Gabon names prominent banker as minister of finance
May 5 (Reuters) - Gabon's leader Brice Oligui Nguema has named a new cabinet, after his landslide victory in a presidential election in April, choosing a prominent banker and businessman to tackle the country's acute liquidity shortage. President Nguema, inaugurated over the weekend, has said he will boost agriculture, industry and tourism in the oil-dependent economy and fight corruption. Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. On Monday he named Henri-Claude Oyima, the chief executive of Gabon-based BGFI Bank and head of the Gabonese Confederation of Businesses, to be minister of state, economy, finance and debt. Prior to his election win, Nguema seized power in 2023 from the Bongo family that had ruled the Central African nation for over 50 years.
Reuters
06-05-2025
- Business
- Reuters
India's Adani Power wins contract to supply 1500 MW to Uttar Pradesh state, sources say
Electric power transmission pylon miniatures and Adani Green Energy logo are seen in this illustration taken, December 9, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo Purchase Licensing Rights , opens new tab Companies Adani Power Ltd Follow NEW DELHI, May 6 (Reuters) - India's Adani Power ( , opens new tab has won a contract to supply 1500 megawatts from a thermal power plant in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh at 5.38 rupees ($0.0638) per unit, two sources told Reuters on Tuesday. ($1 = 84.3580 Indian rupees) Make sense of the latest ESG trends affecting companies and governments with the Reuters Sustainable Switch newsletter. Sign up here. Reporting by Sarita Chaganti Singh, writing by Tanvi Mehta Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles. , opens new tab Share X Facebook Linkedin Email Link Purchase Licensing Rights
