Astronomers Just Solved the Mystery of the Universe's Missing Matter

Astronomers have solved the "missing baryon problem" using fast radio bursts (FRBs) to locate the universe's ordinary matter. They found that 76% of baryonic matter exists as hot, low-density gas between galaxies, with 15% in galaxy halos and the rest in stars or cold galactic gas. This discovery provides the first detailed measurements of ordinary matter's distribution throughout the cosmos, confirming previous cosmological simulations and shedding light on matter movement across the universe.