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A tiny NASA satellite was deployed from the International Space Station (ISS) to help scientists search for the missing matter of the universe by studying the X-rays of the "halo" of hot gases surrounding our galaxy . Astronomers keep being short when they study the "normal" material, the material that makes up galaxies, stars and planets. To search for this missing information, a NASA-sponsored CubeSat mission called HaloSat has been deployed since 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 that the universe contains 5% protons of normal matter, neutrons and other subatomic particles, 25% dark matter – a substance that remains unknown – and 70% dark energy , a negative pressure accelerating the expansion of the universe.
As the universe expanded and cooled, normal matter melted into gases, dust, planets, stars, and galaxies. However, when astronomers count the estimated mbades of these objects, they only represent about half of what cosmologists say should be present. "We should have everything we had today when the universe was 400,000 years old," said Philip Kaaret, senior researcher at the University of Iowa (UI) at the states United States, which directs the mission.
Missing materials may be in hot gas located either in the space between galaxies or in galactic halos, the extended components surrounding individual galaxies. HaloSat will study gas in the Milky Way halo that spans about 2 million degrees Celsius. At such high temperatures, oxygen throws most of its eight electrons and produces the X-rays that HaloSat will measure. Other X-ray telescopes, such as the NASA Interior Composition Explorer neutron star and the Chandra X-ray observatory, study individual sources by observing small patches of sky
HaloSat will look at the entire sky, 100 square degrees at a time. , which will help determine whether the galactic halo diffuses to the shape of a fried egg or a 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 from the Earth than when you look at wider angles," said Keith Jahoda, astrophysicist at Goddard from NASA. Space Flight Center in the United States.
"If it is in a quasi-spherical form, compared to the dimensions of the galaxy, then we expect it to be more or less the same in all directions", said Jahoda. The shape of the halo will determine its mbad, which 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 data to the NASA Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia. which relays the data to the Mission Operations Control Center at Blue Canyon Technologies, Colorado. HaloSat measures approximately 10x20x30 centimeters and weighs around 12 kilograms.
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