Unveiling the Cosmic Fog: How Mysterious Signals Reveal Hidden Matter

The universe is mostly made up of dark matter and dark energy. These components are invisible but shape the cosmos and speed up its expansion. The rest is ordinary matter, found in protons and neutrons. This ordinary matter is hard to spot because it's spread out like fog between galaxies. Scientists have been trying to find this missing matter for decades. It's like trying to see through thick fog. Astronomers have a new tool to map this hidden matter: fast radio bursts. These are bright, quick flashes of radio waves from space. Over a thousand have been detected since 2007, but only about 100 have been traced back to galaxies. The exact cause of these bursts is still unknown. However, these bursts can help map the universe's structure. They shine through the foggy intergalactic medium, and by measuring how the light slows down, scientists can weigh this fog, even when it's too faint to see. The study used 69 fast radio bursts, some newly discovered and some previously observed. These bursts range from 11. 74 million to nearly 9. 1 billion light-years away. The farthest, named FRB 20230521B, was found during the research. The team used a network of telescopes to find and measure these bursts. They found that 76% of cosmic matter is hot, low-density gas between galaxies. Another 15% is in galactic halos, and the rest is within galaxies as stars, planets, or cold gas. This finding aligns with previous predictions. It shows that the missing matter is mostly in the intergalactic medium. Understanding the distribution of ordinary matter can help researchers study how galaxies grow and evolve. Fast radio bursts may also help map the cosmic web, the backbone of the universe made mostly of dark matter. The study is a big step in astronomy. It shows how brief flashes can reveal the universe's structure and composition. These signals act like cosmic beacons, illuminating the invisible matter between galaxies. This discovery opens new paths for exploring the cosmos. It's like turning on a light in a dark room, revealing what was hidden before.