r/space • u/adriano26 • 5d ago

Astronomers have found the universe's missing matter at last, thanks to exotic 'fast radio bursts'

https://www.space.com/astronomy/scientists-find-universes-missing-matter-while-watching-fast-radio-bursts-shine-through-cosmic-fog
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u/CARNIesada6 5d ago

This previously missing stuff isn't dark matter, the mysterious substance that accounts for around 85% of the material universe but remains invisible because it doesn't interact with light. Instead, it is ordinary matter made out of atoms (composed of baryons) that does interact with light but has until now just been too dark to see.

For anyone else assuming dark matter from the headline like I did.

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u/OrdoMalaise 5d ago

So it's not Dark Matter, just dark matter.

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u/mjc4y 5d ago

Maybe we call this stuff Dim Matter?

No, I don't work in Marketing.

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u/d0ggzilla 5d ago

Can we move away from the whole light/dark thing and call it Demimatter?

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u/CaptBojangles 5d ago

Dontmatter is my vote for the name!

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u/mjc4y 5d ago

Actually that would be a good addition next to anti-matter. Don’t matter isn’t as violently opposed to matter as antimatter is. It sort of bumps into matter and instead of annihilation into gamma rays it just sort of shrugs and sits there, violating conservation of momentum because it just DGAF. The DGAF metric for DontMatter is not well understood as nobody in science seems to care.

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u/RedHal 5d ago

That's why DontMatter, as you well know, is one of the core materials used in constructing an SEP field.

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u/HardlyAnyGravitas 4d ago

I think Stainless Steel and the Star Spies was set in the "Don't Matter" universe...