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Mysterious, Nearly Invisible Dwarf Galaxy Challenges Dark Matter Model

posted by mrpg on Wednesday January 31 2024, @08:31AM   Printer-friendly
from the noone-knows-how-the-cloud-works dept.

fliptop writes:

A nearly invisible dwarf galaxy is challenging the model of dark matter. An international team of astronomers, led by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) in collaboration with the University of La Laguna (ULL) and other institutions, discovered this fascinating galaxy dubbed "Nube."

Nube, which means "Cloud" in Spanish, was named by the 5-year-old daughter of one of the researchers, aptly reflecting the galaxy's ghostly and diffuse appearance. Its discovery is significant because its faint surface brightness allowed it to remain undetected in previous sky surveys, despite its considerable size.

"With our present knowledge we do not understand how a galaxy with such extreme characteristics can exist," says study first author Mireia Montes, researcher at the IAC and the ULL, in a media release.

Nube is unique in its properties, being ten times fainter yet ten times more extended than other dwarf galaxies with a similar number of stars. Its discovery is akin to finding a hidden treasure in a well-explored attic. Nube is large and yet faint, a ghostly apparition in the universe. To put it into perspective, it's about one-third the size of the Milky Way but has a mass comparable to the Small Magellanic Cloud.

What sets it apart is its significant amount of dark matter, an invisible substance that does not emit, absorb, or reflect light, making it undetectable by traditional telescopes.

Related: Bizarre Galaxy Discovered With Seemingly No Stars Whatsoever

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  • (Score: 2) by Gaaark on Thursday February 01 2024, @09:14PM (1 child)

    by Gaaark (41) on Thursday February 01 2024, @09:14PM (#1342696) Journal

    Yup!

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  • (Score: 2) by Unixnut on Thursday February 01 2024, @10:50PM

    by Unixnut (5779) on Thursday February 01 2024, @10:50PM (#1342713)

    Well, one hypothesis is "Variable Gravity" from what I remember of the subject. Namely that just like Newtons laws break down at the extremes, so may our model on how gravity is supposed to work.

    After all, most of our study of gravity has been local to our planet. Only relatively recently in human scientific study have we got the tools to observe gravity at its extremes (black holes and entire galaxies), and there we find our model breaks down. Dark matter is one of those things added to make our current models carry on working.

    I'm no expert myself, but a quick search online sees that there is a lively debate on the matter:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_models_of_gravity [wikipedia.org]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modified_Newtonian_dynamics [wikipedia.org]
    https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/319575/dark-matter-vs-modified-gravity [stackexchange.com]