Astronomers Discover Extraordinary Galaxy Filled With Dark Matter 9 Billion Light-Years From Earth
Astronomers at the University of Texas at Austin have just published a new study on the extraordinary discovery of galaxy DSFG850.95, which is filled with large amounts of dark matter, essentially contradicting the theory that galaxies don’t generally begin their life with much dark matter.
As Phys.org report, the ancient galaxy DSFG850.95 is 9 billion light-years away from Earth, which means that the light astronomers are peering into when they study this ancient galaxy first left it 9 billion years ago.
Some astronomers have advocated the theory that galaxies don’t usually start out with much dark matter and gradually accrue it over time. However, work conducted by astronomers at the McDonald Observatory in Texas shows that this is actually not the case.
While dark matter cannot be seen, it can be inferred by the gravitational pull that it has on other objects around it, and these objects can be measured. It wasn’t recognized until the 1970s and was accidentally discovered when scientists were conducting research on spiral galaxies and noticed that there must be some form of matter that accounted for all of the mass that they weren’t able to identify.
Over the years, astronomers have learned that the majority of galaxies do indeed contain dark matter and that this dark matter is much more prevalent than normal matter. Yet some studies which have been published have tried to show that there are some galaxies around 10 billion years of age that don’t have the amount of dark matter that they would be expected to, which has led to the conclusion that perhaps dark matter simply hadn’t had the necessary time to form.
Astronomers find that dark #matter dominates across cosmic time @utaustin @AAS_Publishing @nature https://t.co/upIvQRzFK7
— Phys.org (@physorg_com) December 12, 2018
However, in the new study of galaxy DSFG850.95, Patrick Drew and Professor Caitlin Casey have shown that this galaxy contains extravagant amounts of dark matter and that some galaxies this age did (and do) contain the dark matter that they would be expected to have.
As such, the new research refutes a study published in 2017 in the journal Nature which, as Casey explained, suggested that galaxies this age “might not have as much dark matter, and that they’re fundamentally different to galaxies in the present-day universe.”
As Casey further elaborated on the study of galaxy DSFG850.95, “The galaxy we found is a clear counter-example of that, where it seems to have matter behaving in the normal way, as it does in the present-day universe.”
Drew explained that this new research has proven that early galaxies had just as much dark matter as modern ones do today.
“This galaxy does what’s expected of galaxies like it and it is the first solid confirmation that what happens in these galaxies in the current-day universe is the same as what happened in the early universe.”
The new study on the discovery of dark matter contained in galaxy DSFG850.95, which is 9 billion light-years away from Earth, has been published in the Astrophysical Journal.
