The latter method of measurement gives fairly good results with values previously discovered by other groups of researchers using other cosmological techniques.
A group of American astrophysicists have found one of the most accurate measurements of the total mass of matter in the universe, contributing to the answer to the universe’s oldest mystery.
The answer was published in The Astrophysical Journal on September 28.
According to astrophysicists, matter represents only 31.5% (minus 1.3%) of the total amount of matter and energy that make up the universe. And the remaining 68.5% is dark energy, a “mysterious force” behind the expansion of the universe over time and first predicted in distant meteor observations in the late 1990s. Most of the matter – about 80% – is called dark matter. The nature of dark matter is unknown but may contain particles of undiscovered subelements.
The latter method of measurement gives fairly good results with values previously discovered by other groups of researchers using other cosmological techniques.
Gillian Wilson, of the University of California at Riverside (UCR), co-authored the study that more than 100 years of research in the universe has gradually yielded more precise measurement results.
The group’s new measurement method improves on a technique 90 years ago by pioneer astronomer Fritz Zwicky, which involves observing how stars move in orbit in a group of constellations.
These observations helped them measure the gravitational pull between constellations and thus calculate the total mass.
