Overview

• Researchers analyzed 69 fast radio bursts with known distances to weigh otherwise invisible gas in the intergalactic medium.
• Their measurements show that 76% of the universe’s baryonic matter resides between galaxies, 15% in halo regions and 9% inside galaxies.
• X-ray data from XMM-Newton and Suzaku revealed a 23-million-light-year filament of 10-million-degree gas linking four clusters in the Shapley Supercluster.
• The hot gas filament contains mass equivalent to ten Milky Ways and matches the density and temperature predicted by cosmological models.
• Planned radio arrays such as the DSA-2000 could localize thousands of fast radio bursts each year to chart the cosmic web in greater detail.