Visible matter is a drop in the sea of cosmic soup. The foundation of the Universe is made of invisible dark matter, whose gravity keeps galaxies from flying apart. The best candidate for this role is sterile neutrinos, ghost particles connected to us only by the thinnest of bridges.

Immediately after the Big Bang, space suddenly expanded and became extremely hot. A new model shows: if a tiny fraction of that energy went into creating sterile neutrinos, exactly enough were born to explain all dark matter.

The mechanism solves the mystery of the weak signal from neutrinos, bypassing the limitations of telescopes. Now dark matter becomes a tool: future observatories will be able to measure the temperature of that 'cooking,' peering into the first moments after the Big Bang.