NASA's Hubble telescope detects possible 'dark galaxy'
KSL.com • • general
Key Points:
- Astronomers have discovered Candidate Dark Galaxy-2 (CDG-2), located about 300 million light-years from Earth, which appears to be composed of at least 99.9% dark matter, making it one of the most dark matter-heavy galaxies identified to date.
- CDG-2 is an extremely faint, low surface brightness galaxy with very few stars, detected through a novel method involving the observation of globular clusters, which are bright star groupings that indicate the presence of underlying dark matter.
- The galaxy likely lost the hydrogen gas needed for star formation due to interactions with larger galaxies, leaving behind a "ghost" galaxy dominated by dark matter and only a few globular clusters.
- This discovery offers a nearly pristine environment
