Astronomers have discovered a galaxy that is devoid of dark matter. This object, known as NGC 1052-DF2 or simply DF2, is 6.5 million light-years away and about the same size as our Milky Way galaxy, but with 200 times fewer stars.
The same group of astronomers has returned with “stronger proof” of DF2’s strange character, according to them. In addition, the team claims to have discovered a second galaxy devoid of dark matter.
The researchers’ findings were reported in two peer-reviewed publications in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. The first research appeared in the March 20, 2019, edition, while the second appeared on March 27, 2019.
What makes this so exciting is that we’re seeing something brand fresh. No one knew such galaxies existed, and for an astronomy student, the finest thing in the world is to discover an object that no one knew about or had even considered, whether it’s a planet, a star, or a galaxy.
There’s a growing list of galaxies that don’t have dark matter
Now that 19 additional galaxies without dark matter have been discovered, DF2 and DF4 appear less strange. Astronomers will have to carefully analyze what this expanding number of galaxies lacking dark matter signifies if the current findings prove true.
Guo and her colleagues discovered the most recent batch of missing dark matter galaxies by investigating the characteristics of 324 dwarf galaxies using data from the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico and the Shaw Digital Sky Surveys.
They studied how rapidly hydrogen gas rotates around each galaxy using this data, following in the footsteps of Rubin and Ford. They also determined how much normal stuff was there in the form of gas and stars.
After analyzing the figures, Guo and her colleagues discovered that 19 of the 324 dwarf galaxies they studied have enough visible matter to explain the galaxies’ hydrogen movements alone. In other words, these galaxies appear to be lacking in dark matter.
Our findings imply that a population of dwarf galaxies might originate in a fashion that requires significantly less dark matter than those in the Local Group and those discovered in simulations, the paper says.
Also read: Planetary Nebula as seen by Hubble has a complex structure
NASA has discovered a ‘possibly hazardous’ meteorite on its way to Earth.
That’s what makes this recent discovery so strange. A team of scientists has discovered one galaxy with no dark matter, according to a recent paper from The Royal Astronomical Society. When lead astronomer Pavel Mancera Pia and his team originally made the finding, they were urged to measure again.
However, after spending more than 40 hours analyzing this galaxy with the Very Large Array observatory in New Mexico, the results remained the same. This is a galaxy devoid of dark matter.
Can it be possible that dark matter does not exist?
For decades, cosmologists, physicists, and astronomers hypothesized that dark matter may explain the unusual gravitational behavior of galaxy clusters. However, a fresh study reveals that it may not exist. Dark matter is never observed.
Read to know more about Dark Matter
Why Dark Matter Couldn’t Exist
Scientists describe minuscule differences in the orbital speed of distant stars in research published in The Astrophysical Journal, revealing essentially nonexistent gravitational influences. This notion might put an end to current hypotheses about dark matter.
The study suggests that the gravitational strength of galaxy clusters and known galaxies are caused by a lack of and poor understanding of gravity, rather than clouds of dark matter.
In summary, mathematics, not unseen substance, holds the key to interpreting galaxy activity, according to co-author Stacy McGaugh, the chair of the astronomy department at Case Western Reserve University.
According to the study, the External field effect, or EFE, is a tiny gravitational tide that is statistically detectable in the orbital speed of stars in over 150 galaxies. The phenomena, according to the study, cannot be explained by dark matter. The modified Newtonian dynamics theory, on the other hand, anticipated it.
Can measurements of galaxies be explained in the absence of dark matter?
We are still in the dark concerning dark matter after almost a century and a half. What was originally supposed to be stuff too faint for telescopes is now regarded to be a whole new sort of matter.
Alan Sipols and Alex Pavlovich, two separate scholars, investigate galaxies in their leisure time. In their most recent paper, scientists calculated mass maps in 214 distinct galaxies and compared them to brightness maps.
They discovered no mismatch between brightness and mass in 62 percent of galaxies and discovered that the excess of ‘unseen mass’ in the remaining galaxies was explainable by standard processes, with no need for dark matter.
Conclusion
We want to know how frequent these galaxies are and if they occur in other parts of the Universe, said Shany Danieli, a Yale University graduate student. We’re looking for further data that will help us comprehend how these galaxies’ features interact with our present hypotheses. We think that this will help us comprehend one of the Universe’s biggest mysteries: the nature of dark matter.
Author
