Distant Invisible Galaxy Could be Made Up Entirely of Dark Matter

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Astronomers can’t see it but they know it’s out there from the distortions caused by its gravity. That statement describes dark matter, the elusive substance which scientists have estimated makes up about 25% of our universe and doesn’t emit or absorb light. But it also describes a distant, tiny galaxy located about 10 billion light years from Earth. This galaxy can’t be seen in telescopes, but astronomers were able to detect its presence through the small distortions made in light that passes by it. This dark galaxy is the most distant and lowest-mass object ever detected, and astronomers say it could help them find similar objects and confirm or reject current cosmological theories about the structure of the Universe.

“Now we have one dark satellite [galaxy],” said Simona Vegetti, a postdoctoral researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, who led the discovery. “But suppose that we don’t find enough of them — then we will have to change the properties of dark matter. Or, we might find as many satellites as we see in the simulations, and that will tell us that dark matter has the properties we think it has.”

This dwarf galaxy is a satellite of a distant elliptical galaxy, called JVAS B1938 + 666. The team was looking for faint or dark satellites of distant galaxies using gravitational lensing, and made their observations with the Keck II telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, along with the telescope’s adaptive optics to limit the distortions from our own atmosphere.

They found two galaxies aligned with each other, as viewed from Earth, and the nearer object’s gravitational field deflected the light from the more distant object (JVAS B1938 + 666) as the light passed through the dark galaxy’s gravitational field, creating a distorted image called an “Einstein Ring.”

Using data from this effect, the mass of the dark galaxy was found to be 200 million times the mass of the Sun, which is similar to the masses of the satellite galaxies found around our own Milky Way. The size, shape and brightness of the Einstein ring depends on the distribution of mass throughout the foreground lensing galaxy.

Current models suggest that the Milky Way should have about 10,000 satellite galaxies, but only 30 have been observed. “It could be that many of the satellite galaxies are made of dark matter, making them elusive to detect, or there may be a problem with the way we think galaxies form,” Vegetti said.

The dwarf galaxy is a satellite, meaning that it clings to the edges of a larger galaxy. Because it is small and most of the mass of galaxies is not made up of stars but of dark matter, distant objects such as this galaxy may be very faint or even completely dark.

“For several reasons, it didn’t manage to form many or any stars, and therefore it stayed dark,” said Vegetti.

Vegetti and her team plan to use the same method to look for more satellite galaxies in other regions of the Universe, which they hope will help them discover more information on how dark matter behaves.

Their research was published in this week’s edition of Nature.

The team’s paper can be found here.

Sources: Keck Observatory, UC Davis, MIT

37 Replies to “Distant Invisible Galaxy Could be Made Up Entirely of Dark Matter”

  1. I don’t profess to be an expert but I’m continually dismayed by scientists jumping on this dark matter nonsense. If it’s completely proven, GREAT, but everything I’ve read says it’s really just a guess because we don’t know (like the old aether we used to have).

    Why can’t this satellite simply be a singularity that has consumed it’s matter and is surrounded by a mass of dust or rocks or whatever’s left? As a low-mass satellite it’s within the realm of reality that this could be a normal phenomenon and we’re seeing this satellite completely dead or in a stage where it has yet to form (re-form?) stars… perhaps the singularity affects that process in ways we don’t know yet…

    but… really… come up with something more plausible than “mysterious dark matter”.

    1. People were skeptical about the very existance of singularities, too, before it was possible to study their effects the way they’re doing now. Technology is always behind theory, so future generations will probably have the means to figure out if dark matter and energy really exists, or there’s something wrong with our theories.

    2. Well, I am continually dismayed by people rejecting accepted science. And contributes by posting the same erroneous nag on science sites, to no worthwhile result. So YMMV.

      Dark matter is a vital part of the current standard cosmology. So it is very fruitfully engaged with other theory. It is not nonsense, it is not a guess, it is not a mathematical equation “placeholder”.

      It is also observable all by itself, by various gravitational effects such as described here. It is the only theory that predicts such observations of cluster collisions, where dark and standard matter behaves differently.

      It is not an aether or phlogiston theory that failed its first meeting with observations that could test it. It is our times atom theory, our times black hole theory, our times neutrino hypothesis, concepts that were theoretical for a long time and are still today difficult to observe but eventually could be tested and survived it.

      And people have tried alternatives, starting from standard matter (historically) to modified gravity (which recently lost out to dark matter in the only arena where it did better previously, precisely predicting galaxies) to no avail. This is the remaining theory.

      Which, considering uncertainty while doing testing, means it has been the most “plausible”, the least uncertain. How can we expect “something more plausible” than the single remaining theory (at this time)?

      And it looks good! See above, a prediction matching facts that didn’t need to be so, if dark matter didn’t exist this observation wouldn’t be.

      As for your particular, it is much more unlikely to be a dark, after mergers ejected, galactic core SMBH than the predicted dark matter galaxies. And even if it was, any amount of those can’t make up the dark matter mass, there is simply too little standard matter around. So this is very likely a good observation, and can be relied on as per above.

      1. How can we expect “something more plausible” than the single remaining theory (at this time)?

        Well said. As a certain fictional detective once quipped: “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth”

      2. “Dark matter is a vital part of the current standard cosmology. So it is very fruitfully engaged with other theory. It is not nonsense, it is not a guess, it is not a mathematical equation “placeholder””

        If it’s been completely proven, like I said… GREAT. But it’s not. It’s a great fit for trying to figure out some mysteries…

        I’m not saying I don’t completely believe that it could be there… I just feel that a LOT of articles are relying on it because they have absolutely no clue or other theory… when that happens people will get lazy and start saying… HEY… it must be Dark Matter… it must be Dark Energy… instead of actually trying to figure out some other plausible explanation (however whacky they may be). This is why I pointed out the aether… it’s been used as a “oh it must be THIS…” without having to really figure out the facts. It FEELS like a crutch to me at this point since there is no conclusive 100% (heck I’d even take 90%!) proof it exists.

        I absolutely do not discount it and I don’t profess to be an expert. I try to keep an open mind as much as I can. I am sure there will be mysteries of the universe that we will NEVER solve. I hope we can solve this Dark Matter/Energy stuff… either prove it conclusively or move on.

      3. Well, you should know that the articles you “feel” are lazy are not official lab notes from the experiments and observations. Nor are they written by the scientists that performed/observed anything. The whole point of journalism is to organize news for the lay person to understand. If you are looking for more in-depth analysis of findings, you should refer to the scholarly journals, as those are peer-reviewed. Or, if you here to just be blindly critical, you should focus on the manner in which scientific data is reported by journalists.

        Also, what is your standard for completely proven? You make it sound like no matter how much observation or how many experiments support a given theory or how much of a consensus is garnered in a field for the theory, you will question any supporting data for it by saying the scientists might be lazy for not proposing a new, unique, equally grand alternative even when there is no discrepancy?

        Do you see how unworkable that is? Do you understand that by your standards, the Scientific Method itself is fundamentally flawed?

        You have no formal scientific training yet call Dark Matter theory “nonsense” despite the growing amount of supporting data. It sounds like in addition to being too uninformed to cast such judgment, the little information you get comes from a non-reputable source. Educate yourself please

    1. The emergence of the universe likely has more to do with dark energy. This is most probably due to the quantum vacuum energy of the universe which is evenly distributed. This is difficult to understand, for it requires knowing the quantum states or vacuum structure of the universe. To do that requires understanding how gravity or quantum gravity has a vacuum state tied to the rest of quantum fields. Dark matter is due to a number of plausible sources. One is supersymmetry, where DM is composed of the supersymmetric partners of ordinary matter. Another is that DM is the dilaton or axion field in a state of broken symmetry or very low temperature.

      LC

      1. LC, Yatin Dhareshwar is using the word emergent in a different capacity than your answer addresses, or at least from what I read of his posted URL.

        Mary

    2. I did not reproduce my theory in its entirety as it would deflect from the central theme of the main article being discussed here. So, the link would have given a choice to those genuinely interested to read it and others to skip it.

      If there is a provision for reproducing my article in full on this site, please do let me know and I am keen to throw my ideas open for discussion and debate.

      Lastly, the “personal theory promotion URL deleted” was sufficient and reasonable indication on why the URL has been deleted and I completely understand and have no arguments. If that is the policy of this site, then so be it.

      However, the “go and buy advertising” was absolutely unnecessary and should have been avoided. We do not know each other and there is no reason to get personal.

    3. Moderator, but Eugene the brown dwarf and the spaghetti monster are not personal theories but gleaned from modern scientific thought. Lighten up.

      Now the towel-dude is straight for the seminal work of science; The Hitchhikers Guide. A first person account
      Yet to be disproved, might I add

  2. Quick question – I looked at the image above and read the article. For the life of me I can’t figure out what is supposed to be the dark matter galaxy… If, I’m understanding the article correctly, the light spot in the middle is the foreground galaxy around which an Einstein ring has formed. Now somewhere in the ring is evidence of a dark matter galaxy?

    I wish these pictures came with arrows and explanations so that laymen like myself could understand what we are looking at more clearly.

    1. Seconded. I’m confused by the following: “This dwarf galaxy is a satellite of a distant elliptical galaxy, called JVAS B1938 + 666 […] and the nearer object’s gravitational field deflected the light from the more distant object (JVAS B1938 + 666) as the light passed through the dark galaxy’s gravitational field”

      The above sounds contradictory – is the dwarf galaxy orbiting the background elliptical, or is it the foreground lens? Intuitively, I would have to say the dark dwarf must be the foreground lens, which is how we can determine its mass. If it orbited the background elliptical, we would only see the distorted light of the elliptical.

      1. Nevermind. The original Keck release says “map any excess lens mass that could not be accounted for by the galaxy” – so the dark dwarf + elliptical is the lens/foreground object…

    2. It is clearly represented by the dark arrow and annotations. You need your 18d dark glasses

  3. >This dark galaxy is the most distant and lowest-mass object ever detected,

    Ummm… if the dark galaxy is lensing the light from another galaxy, then the other galaxy must be further away than the dark dwarf, no? So the dark dwarf can’t be the most distant object ever detected. And in terms of mass, I’ve just detected a bread crumb on my keyboard….

    I’ve just read through the Keck press release which is a little clearer than the UT article, but it’s not a paragon of lucid writing either. I think what they’re saying is that this object is the lightest and most distant dwarf galaxy detected.

  4. “‘…or there may be a problem with the way we think galaxies form,’ Vegetti said.”

  5. Well, as one who does not buy-into the mainstream hypothetical formulations of how objects in our Universe came to exist, be they Star Worlds, or elegant star-system Galaxy realms, arrayed in cerebral-like pattern formations, strewn throughout the space-expanding Universe of time, I anticipate that “there may [ indeed ] be a problem with the way we think galaxies form”.

    If you build your models on the wrong premise, the established theoretical pictures depicting celestial formations will eventually prove illusory: Is the Universe a product of chance occurrence, or a deliberate Work of Intelligent Creation? What do the established facts show, in contrast to embedded , and thus far, unproven theories that contradict a possible Construction of Mind?

    Is the Universe a work of Concept Plan, or a timeless accident? Were Island Universes, of endless starlit-worlds, built-up(?) without guidance, direction or purpose? Is this vast brain-like existence reflective of meaningless nothingness – from birth of its morning light?

    Driven by thoughtless processes, did this great glittering web-work of time and space come? ( Where a web of master spin hangs glinting in sunlight, can a spider of weave be far away? ) From unframed laws from nowhere made, its governing forces? From no power to enforce, mindless constants to ordain?

    Can humans ponder the Cosmic realm’s beginnings, its origins, divorced from the enclosing sphere of our jewel-like Homeworld, its sum of showcased works, its history in turns of time, and astounding life mosaic of its planetary space?

    From the Great “Singularity”, lost in infinite property, did the precision light-spectrum of Scientific prism come to shine its revealing colors, or was it from a Life in eternity through Concept of Thought, in Vision of Purpose, a Creation of Mind?

    1. Spec, you seemingly wish to argue ‘the scientific method’ vs ‘the supernatural belief system’ — so, rather than advance speculation as you are herein doing with your leading questions would you please advance a specific system of formation and cite specific facts or experimental results which would lend credence to your, admittedly prosaic, assumptions as reflected in your speculations of something other than a ‘timeless acident’.

      Additionally I know of no one who attributed human ‘organizational systems and causes’ to material systems, yet you imply those very same systems to the universe in your third paragraph.

      BTW, your scansion and meter, foot and lead for your uninformed prose limp rather than soar, and led us to nowhere rather than the endpoint you wish. The journey is on sore feet in more commonly expressed words.

      Mary

      1. Speculation? None to see in star-configurations of Astronomy’s constellations? Surely, it is all established fact – unassailable? Well, there are Astronomers and Cosmologists who might disagree ( even if they reside in the minority ).

        The circumstantial evidence, Mary, is as broad as the ordered world itself, and as wide as the sky arrangement: Which gives it silent voice “night after night”: In signatures written by Universe governing laws, revealed in spectrum-breadth of prism light.

        The celestial panorama mirrors a greater reality than this space-time fabric of our woven existence, or “specific system of formation”.

        Sorry, Mary, I cannot explain to you how a galaxy is made; though you may feel confident to explain to me how one can form.

        Stirring up debate is not my intent, nor my desire. A view of thoughts and ideas is all to which I aspire.

        I am not trying to convince anyone, be assured. I simply ( and as you kindly point out, poorly ) am giving voice to one alternative Model of “creation”, if I can so frame it. Unwelcome as it usually is. To purpose of debate it really is not submitted, but one view of thought contributed.

        If it has any validity ( for sake of argument ), then all proven Science exists because of the Hand that wrought its reality – the matter of energy, the time of space, and all the interwoven laws which govern their rippling fabric.

        By the way, doe established Science disprove the possibility of a Life Authoring Creator of worlds? Or does it in fact inexorably flow, like an irresistible current, or mighty gravity stream, in the direction of Intelligence – which the very structure of the Universe seems to radiate.

        ( Common pattern motifs? Outlining a common idea, from electro-chemical flashes of inner space – or nuclear radiance’s of its outer reaches? )

        Question “the scientific method” I do not, nor here advocate any “supernatural belief system”:
        but, from whence the Cosmos sprang, how its order came, and by what means its laws were framed, that I do question.

        Am I the only voice which poses questions ( however well, or ill informed ), challenging mainstream concepts, ideas and speculations, from hypotheses nursed, and theories raised?
        _____________________________

        “… I know of no one who attributed human ‘organizational systems and causes’ to material systems, yet you imply those very same systems to the universe in your third paragraph.”
        ____________________________________________

        I respond with bow to William Paley, and his “Watchmaker analogy” – Intelligent humans conceive an idea, plan its “creation”, work to form its reality – build it from nothing ( using the materials available to them, and employing forces , under regulating laws, as applied to to the forging fires ). The result? An integrated, system complex in form of a steam engine, rumbling down rails of steel: under guiding direction, and through many hands, it emerged from an industrial plant yard of manufacture – it was not self organized.

        Why did it come to be, how did it roll out? Because of intelligent dreams of thought, and working plans of mind: an assembled, organized, operating machine performing a function in time, and moving through space for a designed purpose.

        My style of writing aside, it is the Hypothesis-heavy concept of the origins of the Universe that actually seems to lead nowhere ( hence, the need to conjure-up wave-foaming multiverses, randomly spraying out over endless shores{?} ). It has a primordial point, but is singularly invisible – apart from the afterglow effects, of mind-numbing features and superlative characteristics, forming an enormous Cosmic Construction – blind of vision, and of blueprint, directionless.

      2. Spec, ‘Tested and Found Wanting” is the label which best explains your reply. You still use ten words where three would do.

        You have not answered the questions I asked nor can you… you do assume to ask questions, some of which do have answers and which fall under the veil of science. Do not ask “why is the sky blue” if the answer does not suit your belief system.

        It is plain, however, that you wish your “questions” to bear more of the weight than the structure you weave can support. Seeking answers, as you express, but providing ‘facts’ drawn from your beliefs, it seems you might need to explain to myself and all the rest here just what is your agenda — what is your intent with these ‘non-questions your-assumption-inserted-here provided answers’.

        Additionally, the debate you are attempting to stir while claiming otherwise is actually NOT a debate.

        The matter of intelligent origins vs random mutations working over time in competition with other mutations to organize entropy reversal systems shows a true and proven general theory and with clear and provable work on subsequent theory — all of this many times tested and proven — from fair assumption through provided works, is unassailable, please choose a different mountain to climb.

        Please provide facts of provable origin for those “answers” you claim “explain it all” or retract what you are almost-stating and skating on the edge of while skirting the truth; this would be a greater provenance than any provenience you have expressed to this point.

        Mary

        “If the provenance is unknown, the provenience is still less certain.”

        Barker, Alex W. “Archaeological ethics: museums and collections”.
        Ethical issues in archaeology. Ed. by Larry J. Zimmerman, Karen
        D. Vitelli, and Julia J. Hollowell. Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira
        Press, 2003. 71-84 Chapter Six
        ISBN: 0759102708

      3. Mary, of too many words, tis true. My flawed pen of prose, to dispense; and of word, will TRY to condense.
        ___________________________________________

        “…[I]t seems you might need to explain to myself and all the rest here just what is your agenda — what is your intent with these ‘non-questions your-assumption-inserted-here provided answers’. Additionally, the debate you are attempting to stir while claiming otherwise is actually NOT a debate.”

        My “agenda”? Mary, I love to write (ragged as it can be). Since boyhood, I have been in love with Astronomy. This UT website, and its generous comment feature, I do like. So, when moved, I express my views, sometimes, necessarily, from the point of a “Creationist”. There is my sinister agenda laid bare.

        Are you so intolerant of any non-“establishment” views, that you wish to silence any non-conforming opinions, even if rhetorically bent?
        ____________________________________________

        “would you please advance a specific system of formation and cite specific facts or experimental results which would lend credence” –

        There actually is proof. But its points are reasoned around, dismissed or outright rejected. Reply in lines, I could, but you would not except, and my voice probably silenced. So that limits me:

        – LAW of Biogenesis: Life can only come from life. Its written into the fabric of the world. (The Abiogenesis hypothesis seems to be a desperate attempt to try dethrone that evidence of a Life-Giver.)

        – Laws of radioactivity (which, frankly, I do not fully understand), state, so I am told, that all matter had a beginning. (So, these ancient cosmogony-shadowing cosmological concepts, which try and get around that uncomfortable truth.)

        Not unrelated to the above, the dominant theory for the creation of the Universe itself, gives compelling weight to its possible origin. (Albeit, circumstantial evidence, somewhat like mirror reflections.)

        By the way, Mary, can you prove to me the “Primordial Atom” of infinities, is the First Cause of all we know and see? How did it author such an exacting complex of laws? How could that “creation” Event of such “Alice in Wonderland”-like description occur from its point, infinite? How could it exist?

        – Matrix of governing Laws: If you have a “system” of precisely working laws, does that not logically require an Author, a Lawgiver? (Those laws may seem to break down, or phase-out at the two extreme ends, but I suspect that where this appears to be so, is actually where Science has reached a limit to what it can empirically detect and know, and sees only “strange” reflections of a higher reality.)

        – I will mention this only in passing: Human history (chronicling proof beyond any doubt), and aspects related thereto, but inappropriate here, wherein lie “specific facts” to spell-out.

        _________________

        You seem to demand laboratory-like proof. None can be given in that sense (yet DNA, for example, if you review its characteristics, can be seen as supportive of the concept of a Great Designer – mirror an Authoring MIND).

        Is true Science antithetical to the concept of a Creator? IF such a Being exists, then He would be the Author of all Science.
        __________________

        Your “entropy” paragraph lost me. Random variables, given enough chances, and sufficient time spans, will roll the dice to win advance?

        _________________________________________________

        “…provide facts of provable origin for those ‘answers’ you claim ‘explain it all’ or retract what you are almost-stating and skating on the edge of while skirting the truth” ?

        I will skate over question of my honesty lined here. Are you calling for censorship? The “blue penciling” any controversial views? Am I the only voice of non-mainframe ideas, or concepts here?

        (Speculate: “To engage in a course of reasoning often based on inconclusive evidence. To assume to be true without conclusive evidence.”)

        Hypothetical scenarios woven out of known facts (such as how a world is formed), ties into Science, but is it supporting Science? Mary, can you prove there is NO Creator from Science. As opposed to the science of hypotheses, theories unproven, feathery speculations, presumptive conjectures, and loosely constructed suppositions – as relating to aspects of beginnings and origins?

        – Rene’
        ________________________________________________

        Generally: Can one ask questions – even concept challenging questions? Can one voice a controversial point of view, without being assailed and ridiculed?

        “My feeling is religious insofar as I am imbued with tile consciousness of the insufficiency of the human mind to understand more deeply the harmony of the Universe which we try to formulate as “laws of nature.” — Letter to Beatrice Frohlich, December 17, 1952; Einstein Archive 59-797

        “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.” — Quoted in the New York Times obituary April 19, 1955

        – Albert Einstein

      4. As before, you call in the supernatural wherein you see a need for explainable authorship. Science alone is all that is needed.

        ID has been proven incorrect, flawed, as well as gathering too many of mean spirit, to ever be a science of truth.

        There is no need to answer my actual questions at this point, the way you have dodged and weaved is evident to any wishing to discern your agenda to any deeper degree than you have admitted.

        Mary

      5. In closing:

        Call “in the supernatural” –

        Something “authored” the Cosmos, something decidedly unnatural in property and action.

        Mary, I can no more prove that a Creator Being existed
        at the point of Universe-genesis, than one can prove that the theoretical cosmic “singularity” was the starting point. It is one possibility, I submit.

        To avoid stirring a hornets nest, I could have been less emphatic.

        “ID has been proven incorrect, flawed, as well as gathering too many of mean spirit, to ever be a science of truth.”

        Unfortunately, you have some grounds under that statement. The mean spirit comes from a lack of the unshakable confidence of persuaded conviction, I think (a faith-like belief, unsubstantiated, is present on both sides; so too, is the attendant mean spirit).

        I use “Science” in the sense of what is established-fact: what is demonstrable, observable (not subject to misinterpretation), and quantifiable. I was NOT referring to “Creation Science”, which like its secular counterpart, is a mixture of truth and error, fact and fancy. On both sides, one has to try and sift the chaff from the wheat. And on BOTH sides, one can read “Science”.

        I have outlined my view on the “science” of hypothetical premise, regarding beginnings and origins (where, I believe, Science derails).

        “Science alone is all that is needed.” Do all scientists agree with that?. I have read, and heard scientists admit, that empirical Science can only go so far in its endless quest to learn and understand, to fill-out the whole time-picture.

        Dancing, dodging and weaving? Let the reader of one or two judge.

        – You persist in accusing me of a hidden “agenda”. Appears some suspicion shadows my comments in your eyes. Maybe I am blind, but I know not to what you refer.

        You and others would deny a voice of Creation view from comment on a Science web-site. Well, in that regard, here, let UT decide. (So if the prism disappears…)

        A stiff head-wind can be a good thing, it forces one to concentrate, steady themselves – and compels critical review, reflection and its reedits.

        Well, Mary, you read my words – thank you for hearing me out.

        Rene’

      6. ___________________________________________________________________

        When asked by an astounded atheist, if he were in fact deeply religious, Einstein replied:

        Yes, you can call it that. Try and penetrate with our limited means the secrets of nature and you will find that, behind all the discernible concatenations, there remains something subtle, intangible and inexplicable. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion. To that extent I am, in point of fact, religious.

        — H. G. Kessler, The Diary of a Cosmopolitan, (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971), p.157; quoted in Einstein and Religion by Max Jammer (Princeton University Press, 1999) pp. 39-40.
        ___________________________________________________________________

        “My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive With our frail and feeble minds. That deeply emotional conviction of the presence of a superior reasoning power, which is revealed in the incomprehensible Universe, forms my idea of God.”

        — Quoted in the New York Times obituary April 19, 1955

        Albert Einstein (1879 – 1955)

        A voice eclipsed today, would be. Only an honor for me, blue penciled out with
        such a man as he. With him eclipsed.

        ____________________________________________________________________

    2. It is scientificly clear how things came to existance:

      It was the flying spaghetti monster who did it, and he is more powerfull than any intelligent mind.

    3. Your in wrong forum. Maybe you should find a religious site to debate this.

      Also everyone knows that this universe was created by a big brown dwarf called Eugene. You can find proof in the chronicles of Eugene the all mighty. And when you look very carefully at every star, galaxy or even a flower you will see the happy face if Eugene channelling you that he created all this.

    4. “rant” — “To speak or write in an angry or violent manner”? No, I was protesting a slanting of the debate table, where one voice remains, the other is censored out.

      As I cannot abide the comments shadowing my name in “Activity” of Disqus, some will be glad to know, I have signed out (unworthy of the honorable company of others, like great scientists of the past, who today, would be so removed from public forums, Universities and Institutes for believing what Albert Einstein believed, in essence).

      The Eclipse is a fitting symbol indeed.

      As one eclipsed, Finito.

  6. Who wrote this? I might not take credit either. “most of the mass of galaxies is not made up not of stars but of dark matter”. Wow, follow that one. And the whole second paragraph is inserted in such a poor way as to assure that the reader has no idea where a “satellite” even comes into the equation. Also, to “explain” something is to make it clear. “meaning that it clings to the edges of a larger galaxy” is hardly a way to explain astrophysical behaviour. Babies and Koala bears cling. Galaxies, AFAIK, do not.

  7. If it is invisible, how do we know that it is a galaxy? Or things above a certain mass are galaxies by definition?

    1. The link in your name indicates you are only trying to get free advertising, which is against the blog rules.

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