What faint dwarf galaxies can tell astronomers about galaxy formation
Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2022 3:24 am
https://news.umich.edu/what-faint-dwarf ... formation/
Here we sit, situated on Earth amid the Milky Way galaxy. And here the Milky Way galaxy sits, having grown inside a large dark matter halo
Dark matter is a curious thing: It doesn’t interact with light, so it should really be called transparent matter, says Eric Bell, professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan.
But it makes up about 85% of the matter in our universe and drives galaxy formation. In order to study it further, astronomers find and examine really faint dwarf galaxies that should be embedded in smaller, dark matter “subhalos.”
“One of the big reasons for studying these little dwarf galaxies is that you get to learn about what small dark matter clumps, or halos, would look like,” Bell said. “You’d expect this to impact the properties of the faint galaxies.”
Here we sit, situated on Earth amid the Milky Way galaxy. And here the Milky Way galaxy sits, having grown inside a large dark matter halo
Dark matter is a curious thing: It doesn’t interact with light, so it should really be called transparent matter, says Eric Bell, professor of astronomy at the University of Michigan.
But it makes up about 85% of the matter in our universe and drives galaxy formation. In order to study it further, astronomers find and examine really faint dwarf galaxies that should be embedded in smaller, dark matter “subhalos.”
“One of the big reasons for studying these little dwarf galaxies is that you get to learn about what small dark matter clumps, or halos, would look like,” Bell said. “You’d expect this to impact the properties of the faint galaxies.”