GSFC: New Mini Satellite Will Study Milky Way's Halo
Posted: Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:30 pm
New Mini Satellite Will Study Milky Way's Halo
NASA | GSFC | 2018 Jul 18
NASA | GSFC | 2018 Jul 18
Astronomers keep coming up short when they survey “normal” matter, the material that makes up galaxies, stars and planets. A new NASA-sponsored CubeSat mission called HaloSat, deployed from the International Space Station on July 13, will help scientists search for the universe’s missing matter by studying X-rays from hot gas surrounding our Milky Way galaxy.
The cosmic microwave background (CMB) is the oldest light in the universe, radiation from when it was 400,000 years old. Calculations based on CMB observations indicate the universe contains: 5 percent normal matter protons, neutrons and other subatomic particles; 25 percent dark matter, a substance that remains unknown; and 70 percent dark energy, a negative pressure accelerating the expansion of the universe.HaloSat, a new CubeSat mission to study the halo of hot gas surrounding the Milky
Way, was released from the International Space Station over Australia on July 13.
Credits: NanoRacks/NASA
As the universe expanded and cooled, normal matter coalesced into gas, dust, planets, stars and galaxies. But when astronomers tally the estimated masses of these objects, they account for only about half of what cosmologists say should be present. ...
Researchers think the missing matter may be in hot gas located either in the space between galaxies or in galactic halos, extended components surrounding individual galaxies.
HaloSat will study gas in the Milky Way’s halo that runs about 2 million degrees Celsius (3.6 million degrees Fahrenheit). At such high temperatures, oxygen sheds most of its eight electrons and produces the X-rays HaloSat will measure. ...