The universe is far brighter than it should be based on the number of light-emitting objects we can find, a cosmic accounting problem that has astronomers baffled.
"Something is very wrong", says the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington in Pasadena, California.
Solving the mystery could show us novel ways to hunt for dark matter, or reveal the presence of another unknown "dark" component to the cosmos.
"It's such a big discrepancy that whatever we find is going to be amazing, and it will overturn something we currently think is true," says Kollmeier.
The trouble stems from the most recent census of objects that produce high-energy ultraviolet light. Some of the biggest known sources are quasars – galaxies with actively feeding black holes at their centres. These behemoths spit out plenty of UV light as matter falling into them is heated and compressed. Young galaxies filled with hot, bright stars are also contributors.
Ultraviolet light from these objects ionises the gas that permeates intergalactic space, stripping hydrogen atoms of their electrons. Observations of the gas can tell us how much of it has been ionised, helping astronomers to estimate the amount of UV light that must be flying about.
But as our images of the cosmos became sharper, astronomers found that these measurements don't seem to tally with the number of sources found.
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