Scientists discover the ghost of spinning without stars

Perhaps astronomers may stumble through the ghost ghost hidden in sight-a small cloud of fast-moving gas that checks all the boxes of what is known as the “dark galaxy”. And if the discovery continues, this may help in connecting one of the most confusing holes in cosmology: the problem of the mysterious “missing satellite”.

Team search, Published Today in Science Advances, it describes the AC G185.0-11.5, which is a built-in cloud built in the largest cloud (HVC) known as AC-I. The cloud was monitored by an international research team using the huge telescope in China. While HVCs is known to enlarge speeds that exceed the rotation of the Milky Way, most of them are relatively unique. But the gas cloud that I have recently monitored: it revolves.

Fast notes are very sensitive about the presence of a clear rotational pattern in the cloud, which is arranged in the form of a tablet-the type of structure you expect from a dwarf galaxy. But there is something wrong: there is no sign of the stars in the cloud, and there is no molecular gas (the usual things to form stars). It seems that the AC G185.0-11.5 consists of hydrogen gas only, rotating in space, with no anything inside it. Ergo, a dark galaxy.

Using Hungarian movement equations and a cosmic measurement called the Tully-Fisher relationship, the team estimated the distance of the cloud from the ground: about 278,000 light years. This places the cloud comfortably within the local group, at the galaxy. As for the mass, the cloud ranges between 30 million and about 500 million solar masses – not huge, but it is sufficient to consider it a galaxy itself.

But what gives AC G185.0-11.5 the elegant sticker for “Dark Galaxy” is the content of the dark matter. Researchers believe that the cloud is assembled together through a massive dark aura, making it an ideal candidate of the dark galaxy – a theoretical type of galaxy mostly made of dark materials, with few or non -stars.

This is not the first time that scientists have suspected that some high -speed clouds may be already hidden galaxies, but most other candidates were lacking in a clear rotation or it was very difficult to distinguish between the Milky Wala. AC G185.0-11.5 looks like a real deal – it is likely to be the best evidence so far on a galaxy is all meat, not potatoes. You know, if the potatoes are stars.

If the Dark Galaxy candidate is confirmed this way, he can rewrite how we think about the composition of Galaxy. The cloud provides a perplexing hint about the place where all the “lost” small galaxies – do not lose, just sit without light in sight.