Tech
Mystery galaxy baffles scientists
Astronomers have discovered a strange galaxy that is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter.
The absence of this mysterious stuff in NGC 1052-DF2, described Wednesday in the journal Nature, could shed light on galaxy formation and help scientists narrow down what dark matter actually is.
“Paradoxically, not seeing the dark matter in this object is evidence that it exists,” said lead author Pieter van Dokkum, an astronomer at Yale University.
Read also: New human organ discovered by scientists
Dark matter can’t be seen or touched, but it outweighs all the normal matter in the universe by more than 5 to 1. Astronomers know it’s there because of its gravitational influence, but they can’t detect it any other way.
Until now, every known galaxy has been thought to be filled with dark matter, which forms a halo around its galactic host.
Scientists think that clumps of dark matter were the gravitational seeds that actually allowed galaxies to form.
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