Light that first appeared 380,000 years after the Big Bang has been distorted by dark matter, just as Einstein predicted.
Scientists have come up with the most detailed map of the mysterious dark matter, using the first light of the universe, and we can say that Einstein was right again.
The new image, created using light traveling through time 14 billion light-years after the Big Bang, shows how massive the folds of matter were after the Big Bang, which can be likened to the tendrils of a type of climbing plant. The shapes of these tendrils are remarkably similar to what Einstein predicted using his general theory of relativity.
The new findings contradict dark matter maps, which suggest that the giant cosmic web in which hydrogen gas and dark matter intersect is less lumpy than Einstein's maps predicted.
The astronomers presented their results April 11 at the Japan Institute for Theoretical Physics' Future of Science with CMB x LSS conference.
According to Matteo Madhavashiril, a cosmologist at the University of Pennsylvania: “We have created a new map of mass using the trends of light from the Big Bang. It is exciting that it provides measurements that show both the mass and growth rate of the universe over its 14 billion years of evolution, and it approximates the predictions of our standard model of cosmology.” based on Einstein's theory of gravity.
Scientists hypothesize that the universe formed as a result of the Big Bang is teeming with particles of matter and antimatter, which are exactly the same as their matter counterparts but with the opposite charge.
And since matter and antimatter annihilate each other immediately after the collision, then the entire universe would annihilate if their quantities were equal, and then our universe would not arise from the ground up. Yet our universe's "space-time" is expanding rapidly, with quantum fluctuations helping to preserve some of the universe's plasma.
According to Einstein's rules of general relativity, gravity compressed and heated that plasma, sending sound waves - called baryonic oscillations - rippling outward, away from the clumps, at half the speed of light.
Those giant ripples pushed out matter that had not been destroyed by the collision, creating a nascent cosmic web of thin chains of ribbons surrounding countless cosmic voids, like clusters of soap bubbles in a sink.
Once that material had cooled, it coalesced into protostars, which in turn were stacked into material-rich galaxies that met at the points of the lattice filaments.
Previously, astronomers studying this cosmic web showed great inconsistencies, with affection more evenly distributed and less lumpy than expected, an omen that our current cosmological models lack important physics.
To dig deeper into this apparent discrepancy, researchers turned to the US National Science Foundation's Atacama Cosmological Telescope in Chile, which surveyed a quarter of the entire night sky between 2007 and 2022, using its highly sensitive microwave detector.
The telescope captures light from the cosmic microwave background left over from the Big Bang - the first light emitted from the universe, 380,000 years after the Big Bang - and using a process called gravitational lensing, has mapped the concentrations of matter in the CMB.
Gravitational lensing occurs when light passes near a distorted region in space-time due to the presence of strong gravitational fields caused by massive masses. The light is then distorted, twisted and repeated - as if reflected in a recreational mirror - until it appears as an arc extending outward, called an Einstein loop.
Gravitational lensing can detect the presence of dark matter, which makes up more than 85% of the matter in the universe and cannot be observed directly.
The new map contrasts with an earlier one made using visible light from galaxies, and shows that Einstein's original theory was much more accurate than previously thought.
So what does this mean for our view of the evolution of our universe? It's still too early to say anything.
The researchers propose adding new maps made using data from the Atacama Observatory and observations provided by the Simmons Observatory, a telescope under construction in the Atacama Desert that can scan the sky 10 times faster than the Atacama Observatory, and could finally solve a cosmic mystery.