Scientists have discovered new properties of dark matter by studying 30 dwarf galaxies
A team of scientists from the UK, Italy and Belgium using the Hubble orbiting telescope have found evidence of the assumption that dark matter protects galaxies from destruction by the gravity of other galaxies. The results of a new study of dark matter were published in the British magazine Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, RIA Novosti reports.
Dark matter is an invisible substance, the presence of which can only be judged by its gravitational effect. Dark matter, according to scientists, accounts for more than 90% of the mass of the Universe. So far, scientists can not accurately establish its nature. According to astrophysicists, dark matter is a kind of building material and serves to "glue" stars into galaxies.
The authors of the study, led by a professor at the University of Nottingham Christopher Conselice, obtained new data on the properties of dark matter when studying the Perseus galaxy cluster - a cluster of thousands of galaxies with a total mass of trillions of solar masses located at a distance of 250 million light years.
Astronomers have studied the galaxy cluster and found about 30 dwarf galaxies. They remained intact, despite the fact that their more massive neighbors were destroyed by the gravity of large galaxies in the periphery.
The reason for the safety of dwarf galaxies, according to scientists, is the extremely high content of dark matter in them. According to the researchers, it is much larger than in spiral galaxies such as our Milky Way, and gravity protects the "dwarfs" from their "giant" neighbors.
Such observations have already allowed astronomers to find clusters of dark matter at the center of large galactic clusters using the Chandra space observatory.
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Recall that for the first time that scientists were able to detect traces of dark matter particles during the experiment, it was reported in November last year.
Dark matter, which manifests itself only through gravity, consists of particles that do not interact with ordinary matter, but during their annihilation generate electrons of enormous energy. It is these electrons that were found in the composition of the cosmic rays bombarding the Earth by the ATIC device, which was installed on a high-altitude balloon that flew over Antarctica at an altitude of 35 km. Physicists from China, Germany, USA and Russia took part in the experiment.
Scientists in the course of the study came to the conclusion that dark matter is very different from ordinary particles. Despite the high temperature, no radiation emanates from it. According to scientists, this means that dark matter particles are not composed of protons and neutrons.
The theory that there is some unknown dark matter in the Universe was expressed in the 1930s by the Swiss scientist Fritz Zwicky. As pointed out by the researcher, the luminous matter in galaxy clusters is tens of times less than is necessary for the force of its gravity to hold the galaxies together. To explain this paradox, the scientist suggested that there is an invisible substance that creates gravity. Now this mass is called "Dark Matter". Research on dark matter continues.