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Washington
A tiny NASA satellite was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) that will help scientists search for the missing material of the universe in studying the X-rays of the "halo". of hot gas surrounding our galaxy of the Milky Way.
Astronomers keep being brief when they study "normal" matter, the material that makes up galaxies, stars and planets.
To search for this missing material The CubeSat mission called HaloSat was deployed from the ISS on July 13th.
The Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) is the oldest light in the universe, 400,000 years of radiation.
Calculations based on CMB observations indicate the universe contains five percent protons of normal matter, 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. The universe was expanding and cooling, normal matter was melting into gases, dust, planets, stars and galaxies. However, when astronomers calculate the estimated mbades of these objects, they represent only about half of what cosmologists say to be present.
"We should have everything we had today when the universe was 400,000 years old," said Philip Kaaret, principal investigator at the University of Iowa (UI) in the United States, who runs the mission.
Researchers believe that the missing material may be in hot gas located in the space between galaxies or in galactic halos, extended components surrounding individual galaxies.
HaloSat will study gas in the halo of the Milky Way, which is around 2 million degrees Celsius. At such high temperatures, oxygen loses most of its eight electrons and produces the X-rays measured by HaloSat.
Other X-ray telescopes, such as the Neutron star of the NASA Interior Composition Explorer and the Chandra X Observatory, study individual sources. looking at the little spots of the sky.
HaloSat will look at the entire sky, 100 square degrees at a time, which will help determine whether the diffuse galactic halo is more shaped fried egg or sphere.
"If you think of the galactic halo in the fried egg model, it will have a different luminosity distribution when you look at it directly from the Earth than when you look at wider angles," said Keith Jahoda, astrophysicist at Goddard Space of NASA. "If it's almost spherical in shape, compared to the dimensions of the galaxy, then we expect it to be more or less the same in all directions," says Jahoda
. the halo form will determine its mbad, w This will help scientists to understand if the missing matter of the universe is in galactic halos or elsewhere. HaloSat will collect most of its data for 45 minutes on the night half of its 90-minute orbit around the Earth.
During the day, the satellite will recharge using its solar panels and transmit its data to NASA's Wallops Flight Facility. in Virginia, which relays data to the mission's operations control center at Blue Canyon Technologies, Colorado
HaloSat is approximately 10x20x30 centimeters and weighs approximately 12 kilograms. PTI
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