Space and astronomy news
Dark matter is curious stuff! As the name suggests, it’s dark making it notoriously difficult to study. Although it’s is invisible, it influences stars in a galaxy through gravity. Now, a team of astronomers have used the Hubble Space Telescope to chart the movements of stars within the Draco dwarf galaxy to detect the subtle gravitational pull of its surrounding dark matter halo. This 3D map required studying nearly two decades of archival data from the Draco galaxy.
Astronomers are getting a new tool to help them in the hunt for Dark Matter. This is a rendering of the BREAD design, which stands for Broadband Reflector Experiment for Axion Detection. The ‘Hershey’s Kiss’-shaped structure funnels potential dark matter signals to the copper-colored detector on the left. The detector is compact enough to fit on a tabletop. Image courtesy BREAD Collaboration
To study dark matter within galaxies, scientists can analyse the movements of stars, which are influenced primarily by the gravitational pull of dark matter. One common method involves using the Doppler Effect to measure the speed of objects in space—observing changes in the wavelength of light as stars move closer to or further from Earth. Along with moving toward or away from us, stars can also move across the sky.
NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope flies with Earth in the background after a 2002 servicing mission. Credit: NASA.
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NASA's Hubble traces dark matter in dwarf galaxy using stellar motionsThe qualities and behavior of dark matter, the invisible 'glue' of the universe, continue to be shrouded in mystery. Though galaxies are mostly made of dark matter, understanding how it is distributed within a galaxy offers clues to what this substance is, and how it's relevant to a galaxy's evolution.
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