Catch the exciting FRB news overnight? "We've used FRBs to weigh all the matter in the Universe, & we found the half that was missing!"

Australian-led research team uses @CSIRO_ATNF ASKAP to shed light on missing matter.

https://spaceaustralia.com/feature/we-found-it-fast-radio-bursts-shed-light-missing-matter

#SpaceAustralia

Credit: @ICRAR

Using multiple Fast Radio Bursts accurately localised to host galaxies by @CSIRO_ATNF ASKAP, and then using optical telescopes to measure redshift, astronomers were able to determine the density of missing matter across Intergalactic space.

#SpaceAustralia

Credit: @ICRAR

Quick note, this is not Dark Matter - that still remains a big mystery for EVERYONE - but lots of good folks working on lots of excellent research on that.

Check out Francis Froborg & @astroduff
excellent review paper on this topic.

https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.04545 

ASKAP was able to measure the delay in wavelengths, measuring how much 'stuff' the fast radio burst had travelled through since departing its host galaxy.

Really neat science going on here!

#SpaceAustralia

Credit: @ICRAR

Using the accurate distance measured + the delay in wavelengths observed from the inbound signal, astronomers were able to work out the density of the missing matter.

#SpaceAustralia

Credit: @ICRAR

And the localisation was EPIC! Astronomers could target exactly where it was coming from within host galaxies! (little red circle)

#SpaceAustralia

Credit: J. Xavier Prochaska/UC Santa Cruz, Jay Chittidi (Maria Mitchell Observatory), and Alexandra Mannings (UC Santa Cruz)

Dive into this essay / #LongRead about these findings. @ICRAR have made an excellent 3-minute video explainer (at top of article) about this as well - one of the best vids we’ve seen to describe this fantastic research.

Space is soooo cool!

#SpaceAustralia

And lastly, here's the paper if you want to go straight to it!

'A census of baryons in the Universe from localized fast radio bursts'

Macquart, J-P. et al. 2020, Nature, 581, pp.391-395

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2300-2

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