uranologist analyzing project datum from theDark Energy Surveyhave discovered nine unexampled possible nanus beetleweed orb our own galaxy — the big number ever discovered all at once . The determination , published astwostudiesavailable onarXiv , may help explain some of the mystery about dark issue , that invisible substance holding galaxies together .
Dark matter makes up 25 per centum of all matter and energy in the world , and its bearing is only sleep with through its gravitative pull . nanus galaxies contain up to 99 per centum darkness subject , leave just one percent of evident matter . Three of the new satellites are in spades dwarf beetleweed , and the others could be dwarf galaxies , but they might also be spheric clusters . These are like dwarf galaxies except they are n’t held together with dark thing .
These are the first midget galaxies to be fall upon since dozens were blob back in 2005 and 2006 above the northerly cerebral hemisphere . The nine new satellite were found in a small mend of sky above the southerly hemisphere near the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds , the large midget Galax urceolata in the Milky Way ’s orbit . These fresh objects are about a million prison term less monumental and a billion time dimmer than the Milky Way , which contains 100 of billion of stars . That ’s why they ’ve been so strong to find .
Six of the 9 new discovered satellites are label in this image with the Magellanic Clouds and the Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert in Chile . The other three are just outside the arena of view .
Their distances range from about 95,000 light - years to 1.2 million tripping - years from Earth . The nearest one is located in the configuration of Reticulum ( or the Reticle ) midway to the Magellanic Clouds , and it ’s in the process of being torn aside by tidal forces . The most distant of the objects is in the constellation of Eridanus ( or the River ) justly on the fringes of the Milky Way , and it ’s about to get pulled in .
“ These results are very puzzling,”Cambridge ’s Wyn Evanssays in anews sacking . “ Perhaps they were once satellites that orbited the Magellanic Clouds and have been throw off out by the interaction of the lowly and Large Magellanic Cloud . Perhaps they were once part of a gigantic mathematical group of galaxies that — along with the Magellanic Clouds — are come down into our Milky Way galaxy . ”
The Dark Energy Survey , headquarter at theFermi National Accelerator Laboratory , seeks to snap the southern sky in unprecedented detail using its 570 - megapixel Dark Energy Camera . Mounted on a telescope at the Cerro Tololo Inter - American Observatory in the Andes Mountains in Chile , the television camera makes it potential to see wandflower up to 8 billion light - years off . These novel discoveries were made severally byCambridge researchers led by Sergey Koposovand aFermilab team led by Alex Drlica - Wagner .
“ Dwarf satellite are the final frontier for prove our theories of dark matter,”Vasily Belokurov of Cambridgeexplains . “ We need to find them to determine whether our cosmological exposure makes sentiency . ”
[ ViaCambridge&Fermilab ]
persona : Yao - Yuan Mao , Ralf Kaehler , Risa Wechsler / KIPAC / SLAC ( top),ESO / Y. Beletsky & V. Belokurov , S. Koposov / IoA , Cambridge ( middle )
