A group of astrophysicists has discovered the largest and most sparse galaxy ever discovered.
Nube is almost invisible Dwarf galaxy It was discovered by an international team of scientists led by the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (IAC) in collaboration with the University of La Laguna (ULL) and other institutions.
The object's name was suggested by the 5-year-old daughter of one of the group's researchers and is a result of the object's sparse appearance. Its surface brightness is so faint that it has gone unnoticed in many previous surveys of this part of the sky, as if it were some kind of ghost. This is because the stars in this region are spread over such a large area that the “Nube” (which means “cloud” in Spanish) was almost undetectable.
This newly discovered galaxy has a unique set of properties that distinguish it from previously known objects. The research team points out that Nobi is a dwarf galaxy that is ten times darker than other similar objects that contain a similar number of stars. For those interested in astronomy, it should be noted that this galaxy is ⅓ smaller than… milky waybut has a similar mass Small Magellanic Cloud.
“With our current knowledge, we don’t understand how a galaxy with such extreme features could exist,” explained Mireya Montes, first author. condition,Researcher at IAC and ULL.
Ignacio Trujillo, the second author of the article, has been analyzing a specific region of the sky for several years as part of the Legado del IAC Stripe 82 project, using images from the program Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). While reviewing the data, they noticed a faint spot that looked interesting enough to start a new research project.
The next stage was to use very deep, multi-colored images Gran Telescopio Canarias (GTC)To ensure that the faint spot in the study was not the result of an error, but rather an extremely diffuse object. Due to its weakness, it is difficult to determine the exact distance of Nube. The authors estimated Nobi's distance at 300 million Light yearUsing observations obtained using a radio telescope Green Bank Telescope (GBT) in the United States, but future radio telescope observations Very Large Array (VLA) And visual William Herschel Telescope (WHT) At the Roque de los Muchachos Observatory, La Palma, it should help determine if this distance is correct. Ignacio Trujillo stated: If the galaxy turns out to be closer, it will still be a very strange object, posing a serious challenge to astrophysics.
The next challenge for the current dark matter model?
Normally, galaxies have a much higher density of stars in their inner regions, and this density decreases rapidly with distance from the center. However, Montes says that in Nobby's case The density of the stars varies very little throughout the object, which is why it is very faint and we were not able to observe it well until we got ultra-deep images from GTC.
Nobby astonished astronomers. The research team explains that at first glance there are no visible interactions or other signs of its strange properties. Cosmological simulations are unable to reproduce its “extreme” features, even based on different scenarios. We are left with no real explanation within the currently accepted cosmological model, ie Cold dark matter Montes explained.
The cold dark matter model can reproduce large-scale structures in the universe, but there are small-scale scenarios, such as Nobby's, for which it cannot provide good answers. We have shown how various theoretical models fail to reproduce this case, making it one of the most extreme cases known to date. It is possible that with this and other galaxies we will find additional evidence that will open a new window to understanding the universe. Montes said.
One attractive possibility is that Nube's unusual properties show us that particles are what are made of it Dark matter They have very low mass – said Ignacio Trujillo. If so, the galaxy's unusual properties would serve as evidence for the properties of quantum physics, but on a galactic scale. If this hypothesis is confirmed, it will be one of the most beautiful manifestations of nature, as the world of the smallest is united with the world of the largest. – He finished.
development:
Agnieszka Novak
more information:
Source: IAC
In the illustration: An image of the Nube galaxy from three different telescopes. Source: SDSS/GTC/IAC
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