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2nd of June 2020
Finding Residual Baryons with Fast Radio Bursts
by Macquart et al.

Macquart et al. last week solved the case of the missing baryons (or oridinary matter), based on observations of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) detected with ASKAP. The ASKAP Commensal Real-time ASKAP Fast Transients (CRAFT) survey team developed a mode capable of localizing FRBs with sufficient accuracy to identify their host galaxies. Follow-up observations with optical telescopes enabled the redshifts, and hence distances, to the galaxies to measured. Comparison with the Dispersion Measure of the FRBs -- the spread in frequency of the burst, which depends upon the density of matter between the FRB and the Earth -- allowed the missing matter to be detected for the first time. The image above is a still from an Australian Academy of Science video explaining the result. The results are published in the journal Nature.




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