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Space

The Milky Way seems to be missing nearly half of its regular matter

Measurements of a blast of radio waves passing through our galaxy have shown that the Milky Way's proportion of visible matter is 40 per cent lower than the rest of the universe

By Leah Crane

11 January 2023

Milky way galaxy with stars and space dust in the universe

The Milky Way seems to have less matter than we thought

Getty Images/Witthaya Prasongsin/Moment RF

The Milky Way seems to be missing some of its matter. A study of a powerful flash of cosmic radio waves called a fast radio burst (FRB) has shown that the area in and around our home galaxy has less normal, or baryonic, matter than we would expect, as compared with the amount of dark matter.

The Deep Synoptic Array (DSA), a set of 110 radio dishes in California, of which 63 have been operating so far, was designed specifically …

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