After another four decades, not only does the idea of dark matter still hold, but we are also able to model its distribution based on the phenomenon of gravitational lensing. It is now assumed that dark matter can be found in every major galaxy in the universe.
At least that’s how it has been until now. It is generally assumed that dark matter makes up to 85% of the universe. matter in the universe. However, the massive galaxy NGC 1277 in the Perseus cluster appears to be completely devoid of it. The galaxy itself is located 240 million light-years from Earth and is in many ways similar to our Milky Way. NGC 1277 is the same size as the Milky Way and consists of stars, planets, dust and gas. Only dark matter is missing. And here comes the whole problem.
Read also: What is dark matter made of? A distant galaxy gives us a clue
When Vera Rubin studied galaxy rotation in the 1970s, she found that any massive galaxy has more matter than we can see, so it must contain a significant component of dark matter. It was a surprise then. Cosmological models created at the time, taking into account dark matter, have successfully explained the rotation curves of many later galaxies. We are now dealing with the plot development. Galaxy NGC 1277 is at odds to generally accepted cosmological models, since it does not contain dark matter itself.
It should be noted here that NGC 1277 is a type of lonely galaxy, which throughout its existence has not interacted significantly with its surroundings. So it can be considered that in many ways it is similar to the first galaxies in the universe. Scientists looking at the galaxy were astonished to discover that its total mass is equal to the mass of all visible components: stars, dust, gas and planets. This in turn means that there can be no more than 5% within the galaxy itself. dark matter, although accurate measurements indicate a complete absence of dark matter within the galaxy. The problem is that standard cosmological models indicate that the percentage of dark matter in this galaxy should range from 10 to 70 percent.
Also read: This is the oldest dark matter seen by man. It is evidence of something important in the early universe
What really happened here?
Simply put: we don’t know yet. Scientists can only suspect that the galactic medium surrounding the galaxy has been stripped of dark matter by gravity, or that dark matter was wrenched from the galaxy during its formation from proto-galactic constituents. However, members of the research team point out that none of these explanations are overly convincing. So we have to wait for the results of more observations using other telescopes. However, for now, NGC 1277 will remain an obscure galaxy that does not fit the model of a relatively ordered universe.
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