Small fluctuations in gravity measurements of gas at the edge of our own galaxy, lead scientists to suspect the existence of a previously unnoticed satellite galaxy near the Milky Way. This is written up in National Geeographic News and an official publication of the research is scheduled for the Astrophysical Journal.
This much smaller galaxy, may be invisible because of dark matter, and because it's non dark matter stars are quite dim, and it exists in a galactic plane hard for us to see, and because of clouds, gases, etc obscuring the penetration of telescopes: all reasons our close neighbor has not yet been noticed.
The confirmation of this galaxy would be exciting since models of galactic formation in the aftermath of the big bang predict a galaxy like ours should have many of these satellites, and yet, no one has found nearly enough to satisfy the mathematical calculations scientists are relying on.
If the dwarf galaxy Dr. Chakrabarti is predicting is found:it will provide verification of scientists' predictions on the distribution of matter in the universe. This "missing satellite problem" she said, "is a fundamental problem in cosmology." Should the galaxy NOT be found, one alternative suggests " there's some other oddity out there throwing off the calculations—perhaps an unexpected distribution pattern of the halo of dark matter thought to surround the Milky Way."
No comments:
Post a Comment