Astronomers have found new evidence that the number of galaxies in the universe is not 10 billion, as previously believed, but 50 billion. ████ █████████ ████ ████ ██ █████████ ██████ ██ ████████ █████ ███ ████████ ███ ███████ ███ ████ ██████ ███████████ ███ ███████ ██ ███████ ████ ████████ ██████ ████ ████████████ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ ████ ██████ █████████ ██████████
Why did discovering so many new galaxies not change astronomers’ estimates of the universe’s total mass?
A hypothesis resolving this discrepancy must give information about the way astronomers calculate the total mass of the universe. It will imply that some property of the new galaxies kept astronomers from remaking their mass estimates, or that astronomers’ estimates depend little on the number of galaxies.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ████ ██ ███████ ███ ███ █████████ ██████ █████████ ██████████
The mass of ████████ ██ ███████ ██ ████ ██ ████ █ ████ ██████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ █████
This explains why the astronomers did not revise their mass estimates by much. If a large majority of the universe’s mass is not contained in galaxies, then finding new galaxies would not be cause to update the mass measurement by a significant amount.
The overwhelming majority ██ ████████ ███ ██ ███ ████ █████ ████ █████ ████ ███ ██ ████ ███████ ██████████
This does not explain why astronomers chose not to update their mass estimates. If the masses of the new galaxies can at least be estimated, their mass should have been added to estimates of the total mass of the universe.
The number of ████████ ████ ███████████ ███████ █████ █████ ██ ████ ██ ███ ███████████ ████ ██ ██████ ████████ ██████ ████ ██████████████
This gives context for the astronomers’ discovery, but does not explain why they opted to keep their current mass estimates. If astronomers routinely discover new galaxies, their estimates of the universe’s mass should also be updated routinely.
Theories about how ████████ ███ ██████ ███ ██████ ████████ ██ █████████ ██ ███ ██████████ █████ █████
This is irrelevant information. Astronomers did not update their estimates of the universe’s total mass, so theories about galaxy development would not have been so affected anyway.
There is no █████████ █████ ███████████ ██ ███ ██████ ██████████ ███ ██████████ ███ ██████████ █████ █████
This does not state that some astronomers disregard the number of galaxies when estimating the universe’s total mass. Whatever their methods, their decision not to update their measurements is a mystery.
Answer five questions and we'll estimate your score.
It takes about five minutes.
Take the free diagnostic