This mysterious “ghost galaxy” does not contain dark matter

researchers University of Groningen you have a galaxy AGC 114905 In more detail they managed to do it after the observation period 40 hours Nobody dark matter Determine. galaxy 250 million light years away from Earth and is one of several “super-spreading galaxies”. It’s the size of the Milky Way, but is home to about a thousand times fewer stars.

In theory, dark matter is required for the formation of galaxies and acts as a kind of glue that holds stars and gas between them. However, since AGC 114905 does not contain this type of matter, it shouldn’t actually be there.

Formation of ultra-diffuse galaxies remains a mystery

Dark matter cannot be measured directly, but it is said to be responsible for a number of effects in the universe that cannot be explained by “normal” matter. How ghost galaxies and other ultra-diffuse galaxies—researchers discovering six more such galaxies in 2019—remained a mystery.

One explanation could be that dark matter was extracted from it when it collided with another galaxy. However, there is no evidence of such a collision with isolated AGC 114905.

Researchers now want to measure ultra-diffuse galaxies again with better accuracy. The study will soon be published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and is uber arXiv can access.