A 'dead' galaxy full of dark matter is lurking close to home
At the edge of the Milky Way, there's a small galaxy called Triangulum II. It has just 1,000 stars, compared to the 100 billion estimated in our own galaxy, and its days of star formation are over, leaving it "dead." But Triangulum II may have a dark secret - one that makes it the most interesting ghost town in space.
The nearby neighborhood may have the highest concentration of dark matter ever found within a galaxy.
In a paper published Tuesday in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, researchers suggest that the mysterious, unseen matter may be responsible for Triangulum II's abysmally low star count.
First, a refresher on dark matter from an earlier post:
"It's a term for the as-of-yet unobserved matter that must be bulking up cosmos, giving galaxies the gravity they need to spin at the rates they do without falling to pieces. But even though we haven't caught dark matter (so named because it doesn't interact with light the way normal matter does - not absorbing or reflecting it - though it does bend light with a weird lensing effect) in a straightforward observation, scientists can learn about it based on the effects it has on more typical, observable forms of matter."
Read more @ http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/ct-dead-galaxy-dark-matter-near-earth-20151121-story.html
