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Lifting the Veil on a Dark Galaxy

posted by martyb on Saturday February 07 2015, @05:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the constant-variables dept.

ah.clem writes:

A cluster of young, pulsating stars discovered in the far side of the Milky Way may mark the location of a previously unseen dark-matter dominated dwarf galaxy hidden behind clouds of dust.

A team, led by Sukanya Chakrabarti from Rochester Institute of Technology, analyzed near-infrared data collected by the European Southern Observatory's survey VISTA to find four young stars approximately 300,000 light years away. These young stars are Cepheid variables-"standard candles" that astronomers use to measure distances. According to Chakrabarti, these are the most distant Cepheid variables found close to the plane of the Milky Way. The paper announcing the discovery appears in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Read the four-star article over at ScienceDaily: here.

 
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  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 07 2015, @06:26AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 07 2015, @06:26AM (#142159)

    infrared dicks spray sticky white cum on your dusty cloud

  • (Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:12AM

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Saturday February 07 2015, @09:12AM (#142180) Journal

    It would be interesting to determine the rotation curve of that galaxy and compare with DM and MOND predictions. That might finally rule out one of the alternatives (my bet is on DM).

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

    • (Score: 2) by ah.clem on Saturday February 07 2015, @06:14PM

      by ah.clem (4241) on Saturday February 07 2015, @06:14PM (#142250)

      I have no dog in the fight, but Stacy McGaugh at Case Western has done some fascinating work that gives MOND traction; his work is worth a look, no matter how you feel about the discussion.