Nautilus

A Short History of the Missing Universe

Reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine‘s Abstractions blog.

Astronomers have known where the universe’s missing matter has been hiding for the past 20 years. So why did it take so long to find it?Illustris Collaboration

he cosmos plays hide-and-seek. Sometimes, though, even when astronomers have a hunch for where their prey might hide, it can take them decades of searching to confirm it. The case of the universe’s —a case that appears to now be closed, as I reported earlier this month—is one such instance. To me, it is a fascinating tale in which clever cosmological models drew a treasure map that took

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