'The Models Were Right': Astronomers Find 'Missing' Matter Linking Four Galaxy Clusters

Vast Filament of Hidden Matter Seen for the First Time

More than one third of the regular matter in the Universe is missing (we're not talking about dark matter, just regular matter). It's needed to make the current cosmological models work, so astronomers continue to search for it, and have found many indirect examples of it. Now a team of astronomers has directly observed it as a huge filament of hot gas bridging four galaxy clusters and containing 10 times the mass of the Milky Way.

This galaxy cluster has mysterious cosmic tendrils over 200,000 light-years long (image)

Astronomers have taken an unprecedentedly detailed look at the tendrils and filaments that wrap around supermassive black hole-dominated galaxies of Abell 2255.

'The models were right': Astronomers find 'missing' matter linking four galaxy clusters

Astronomers have discovered a huge filament of hot gas bridging four galaxy clusters. At 10 times as massive as our galaxy, the thread could contain some of the universe's 'missing' matter, addressing a decades-long mystery.

Massive thread of hot gas found linking galaxies — and it’s 10 times the mass of the Milky Way

Astronomers have uncovered a colossal, searing-hot filament of gas linking four galaxy clusters in the Shapley Supercluster a discovery that could finally solve the mystery of the Universe s missing matter. This giant thread, 10 times the mass of the Milky Way and stretching 23 million light-years, is one of the best confirmations yet of what cosmological simulations have long predicted: that vast, faint filaments connect the Universe s largest …

'The Models Were Right!' Astronomers Locate Universe's 'Missing' Matter

It's not dark matter, writes Space.com. But astronomers have discovered "a vast tendril of hot gas linking four galaxy clusters and stretching out for 23 million light-years, 230 times the length of our galaxy. "With 10 times the mass of the Milky Way, this filamentary structure accounts for mu...