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The Conversation
The Conversation
Chris Impey, University Distinguished Professor of Astronomy, University of Arizona

Most normal matter in the universe isn’t found in planets, stars or galaxies – an astronomer explains where it’s distributed

Mysterious blasts of radio waves from across the universe called fast radio bursts help astronomers catalog matter. ESO/M. Kornmesser, CC BY-SA

If you look across space with a telescope, you’ll see countless galaxies, most of which host large central black holes, billions of stars and their attendant planets. The universe teems with huge, spectacular objects, and it might seem like these massive objects should hold most of the universe’s matter.

But the Big Bang theory predicts that about 5% of the universe’s contents should be atoms made of protons, neutrons and electrons. Most of those atoms cannot be found in stars and galaxies – a discrepancy that has puzzled astronomers.

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