Galaxy without dark matter discovered
Generally, Galaxy without dark matter baffles astronomers.
Recently, Astronomers have discovered a galaxy with almost no dark matter. Dark matter is a confusing area of astrophysics but it is generally agreed upon that dark matter is a requirement of the existence of galaxies.
This theory is being put to the test by this latest discovery of a galaxy, called NGC1052-DF2 that appears to have almost no evidence of dark matter. Finding a galaxy without dark matter is unexpected because this invisible, mysterious substance is the most dominant aspect of any galaxy," said Pieter van Dokkum from Yale University, lead author of the paper on the discovery.
The galaxy is about 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Cetus and is about the same size as the Milky Way. NGC1052-DF2 isn’t just missing dark matter it also only has about one star for every 200 found in the Milky Way.
This is highly uncommon for galaxies. Usually galaxies have a larger mass that can be accounted for just by the ordinary matter inside them. "For decades, we thought that galaxies start their lives as blobs of dark matter. After that everything else happens: gas falls into the dark matter halos, the gas turns into stars, they slowly build up, then you end up with galaxies like the Milky Way. NGC1052-DF2 challenges the standard ideas of how we think galaxies form
The discovery of NGC1052-DF2 will hopefully go a long way in the future study of dark matter, which sounds odd, but its lack of dark matter will help scientist understand why it occurs in other places.
Source: interestingengineering.com
Recently, Astronomers have discovered a galaxy with almost no dark matter. Dark matter is a confusing area of astrophysics but it is generally agreed upon that dark matter is a requirement of the existence of galaxies.
This theory is being put to the test by this latest discovery of a galaxy, called NGC1052-DF2 that appears to have almost no evidence of dark matter. Finding a galaxy without dark matter is unexpected because this invisible, mysterious substance is the most dominant aspect of any galaxy," said Pieter van Dokkum from Yale University, lead author of the paper on the discovery.
The galaxy is about 65 million light-years away in the constellation of Cetus and is about the same size as the Milky Way. NGC1052-DF2 isn’t just missing dark matter it also only has about one star for every 200 found in the Milky Way.
This is highly uncommon for galaxies. Usually galaxies have a larger mass that can be accounted for just by the ordinary matter inside them. "For decades, we thought that galaxies start their lives as blobs of dark matter. After that everything else happens: gas falls into the dark matter halos, the gas turns into stars, they slowly build up, then you end up with galaxies like the Milky Way. NGC1052-DF2 challenges the standard ideas of how we think galaxies form
The discovery of NGC1052-DF2 will hopefully go a long way in the future study of dark matter, which sounds odd, but its lack of dark matter will help scientist understand why it occurs in other places.
Source: interestingengineering.com
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