Particle Physics

A neutrino mass mismatch could shake cosmology’s foundations

Confounding estimates of neutrino masses have researchers considering new ideas about the cosmos

Bright points are scattered in a weblike pattern over a dark background in a computer simulation of the cosmic web.

The intricate network of matter in the cosmos (shown in a computer simulation) is shaped, in part, by neutrinos and their unknown masses.

Andrew Pontzen and Fabio Governato, ESO

By Emily Conover

As the youthful universe congealed under the pull of gravity, matter knotted itself into galaxies, galaxy clusters and filaments, weaving a dazzlingly intricate cosmic web. This web’s structure is thanks, in part, to the handiwork of neutrinos — lightweight, subatomic particles that surge through the cosmos in unimaginable numbers.