Scientists are bewildered to find galaxies without dark matter. After all, this may contradict the vast knowledge that has been gathered so far regarding the theories on the matter.
Although this is not the first time, today’s technological advancements will allow for in-depth investigation.
Dark energy and dark matter are believed to make up almost 95% of our universe. While it’s unclear exactly what it is and where it came from, scientists believe the two hold galaxies together, using gravity.
However, according to Gizmodo, a group of astronomers have spotted a galaxy without dark matter. This story began three years ago when Filippo Fraternali, an astronomer at the Kapteyn Institute for Astronomy at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, and his colleagues discovered scattered galaxies devoid of dark matter.
Because this is a first, astronomers have decided to examine one of them in detail. After choosing one 250,000 light years away, they named it AGC 114905 and used the 27 antennas of the Very Large Array radio telescope in New Mexico to study it.
The dark matter content that we infer in this galaxy is much lower than one would expect.
Fraternali revealed, following a thorough investigation.
Although Yale astronomer Pieter van Dokkum and his colleagues spotted similar galaxies in 2018 using the Hubble Telescope, they haven’t been given much weight. Today, with the development of telescopes and more in-depth observations, this type of galaxy “has become better known,” according to Mireia Montes, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore and a specialist in galaxies.
For now, astronomers believe it’s too early to know whether AGC 114905 and similar galaxies will pose a problem for conventional dark matter theories. Therefore, there is a need to further explore and investigate further. For this, the James Webb Space Telescope can be used, for example.
The study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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