Posted on Dec 9, 2021
This faraway galaxy may be completely devoid of dark matter
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On the surface, a galaxy 250 million light-years from Earth seems like any other, but a deeper look reveals a puzzling quirk: It seems to have no dark matter.
If these galaxies are ultimately confirmed to be devoid of dark matter, it could upend fundamental theories about the making of galaxies (dark matter is considered essential to this process). And that, in turn, could rule out a leading candidate for the mysterious substance, called cold dark matter.
"In principle, galaxies like this shouldn't exist," said Pavel Mancera Piña, a doctoral candidate in astronomy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and an astronomer at ASTRON (the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy), referring to the fact that dark matter is thought to be the glue that holds a galaxy's stars, gas and dust together. "We cannot effectively explain them with any existing theory," said Mancera Piña, who is the lead author of a new paper describing the findings.
If these galaxies are ultimately confirmed to be devoid of dark matter, it could upend fundamental theories about the making of galaxies (dark matter is considered essential to this process). And that, in turn, could rule out a leading candidate for the mysterious substance, called cold dark matter.
"In principle, galaxies like this shouldn't exist," said Pavel Mancera Piña, a doctoral candidate in astronomy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands and an astronomer at ASTRON (the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy), referring to the fact that dark matter is thought to be the glue that holds a galaxy's stars, gas and dust together. "We cannot effectively explain them with any existing theory," said Mancera Piña, who is the lead author of a new paper describing the findings.
This faraway galaxy may be completely devoid of dark matter
Posted from livescience.com
Science
Astronomy
Netherlands
Posted >1 y ago
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Lt Col Charlie Brown - Given the distance from Earth in light years and given that even the Hubble Space Telescope has difficulty at the distances near or farther than 250 million lightyears, I take this doctoral candidate's treatise as interesting information, but nothing that can be said to be proof positive that there is no dark matter within or around this galaxy... The James Webb Space Telescope, assuming that it launches and deploys successfully, may change all that, but we shall have to wait a little bit longer to see... All in all it is a fascinating read of possibility and I applaud this student's efforts...
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It fascinates me that a name is given to something that is assumed to exist from extracting information, in effect, from 2nd hand observations to the topic. I am interested and will be waiting for the rest of the story, as the saying goes.
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Tan't no telling what's out there, some things beyond our understanding might be out there, maybe even some things beyond our natural laws of physics.
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