An international group of astronomers led by scientists from the University of New South Wales (Australia) has revealed the secret of the galaxy NGC1052-DF4, which is almost free of dark matter. The discovery of such a mysterious object could disprove the widely accepted theory of galaxy formation, but new research has helped explain this anomaly. The researchers’ article was published in The Astrophysical Journal.
According to the findings of scientists, dark matter was originally present in NGC1052-DF4, but then it was “stolen” along with the stars of the nearby massive galaxy NGC1035. This phenomenon is called tidal destruction. In this case, dark matter “leaves” the galaxy long before gravity begins to exert visible effects on the stars. If the researchers’ assumption is confirmed, then in a relatively short time NGC1052 may completely collapse.
Astronomers studied the galaxy devoid of dark matter using powerful IAC80 telescopes and long exposure photography of up to 60 hours, which revealed faint stars on the edge of NGC1052 (they look a thousand times fainter than the darkest part of the sky on Earth). Scientists have noticed that, despite the fact that the galaxy appears to be symmetric, faintly distinguishable stars have already begun to leave it, which indicates an external influence.
Dark matter is a hypothetical substance that solves the problem of hidden mass in the Universe. Latent mass affects the motion of stars in galaxies, but it does not correspond to the total mass of visible objects and is not explained by the existence of black holes and neutron stars. Dark matter is detected by indirect methods, including the search for gravitational lenses, when light from distant objects is distorted by invisible massive bodies. It is believed that dark matter consists of as yet undiscovered elementary particles such as wimps or axions.