A Starless Galaxy |
| Written by spacetravel.org | |||
| Tuesday, 19 April 2005 22:52 | |||
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This galaxy, 50 million light-years away, in the Virgo cluster of galaxies, is composed of a massive cloud of hydrogen gas and dark matter. The hydrogen has not formed stars, as it would have in a conventional galaxy. The astronomers discovered a body of hydrogen 100 million times the mass of the Sun, swirling like a normal galaxy, while they were inspecting the Virgo cluster. Observations with a powerful optical telescope revealed no sign of light. There is five times more dark matter in the Universe than normal matter. Very little is known about dark matter. The existence of this galaxy fits with common computer predictions that the Universe should have far more galaxies than we observe.
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