  XMM-Newton observations of the outskirts of the Coma cluster of galaxies
confirm the existence of a soft X-ray excess claimed previously and show it
comes from warm thermal emission. Our data provide a robust estimate of its
temperature (~0.2 keV) and oxygen abundance (~0.1 solar). Using a combination
of XMM-Newton and ROSAT All-Sky Survey data, we rule out a Galactic origin of
the soft X-ray emission. Associating this emission with a 20 Mpc region in
front of Coma, seen in the skewness of its galaxy velocity distribution, yields
an estimate of the density of the warm gas of ~50 f_baryon rho_critical, where
f_baryon is the baryon fraction of the gas and rho_critical is the critical
density needed to halt the expansion of the universe. Our measurement of the
gas mass associated with the warm emission strongly support its nonvirialized
nature, suggesting that we are observing the warm-hot intergalactic medium
(WHIM). Our measurements provide a direct estimate of the O, Ne and Fe
abundance of the WHIM. Differences with the reported Ne/O ratio for some OVI
absorbers hints at a different origin of the OVI absorbers and the Coma
filament. We argue that the Coma filament has likely been preheated, but at a
substantially lower level compared to what is seen in the outskirts of groups.
The thermodynamic state of the gas in the Coma filament reduces the
star-formation rate in the embedded spiral galaxies, providing an explanation
for the presence of passive spirals observed in this and other clusters.
