Astronomers Say Mysterious Dark Galaxy, FAST J0139+4328, Emits No Visible Light

[gary]

Astronomers have discovered a dwarf galaxy, named FAST J0139+4328,
located 94 million light-years away from us that defies expectations. The
galaxy appears to be a dark galaxy, as it's not emitting any optical light and
appears to be made up almost entirely of dark matter. The findings provide
observational evidence that FAST J0139+4328 is an isolated dark dwarf
galaxy, which is the first time that an isolated dark galaxy has been detected
in the nearby universe. The dwarf galaxy was found using the Five-hundred-meter
Aperture Spherical radio Telescope in China. The researchers found that the
galaxy has an upper limit of 690,000 solar masses worth of stars and
contains 83 million solar masses worth of neutral atomic hydrogen gas, with a
total baryonic mass of 110 million solar masses. However, the team calculate
that the galaxy's total mass is 5.1 billion solar masses, meaning that it is
made up of 98% dark matter.

Story here at Science Alert :-
https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-dark-galaxy-emits-no-visible-light-scientists-say

The research has been accepted into The Astrophysical Journal Letters
and is available on arXiv here :-
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2302.02646.pdf

[Crater101]

I hadn't seen that. Many thanks for the information and links, quite a bit of food for thought there. :thanx:

[EpickCrom]

Very interesting, I too had not heard of this. Thanks for sharing Gary.

[Sunfish]

Thanks Gary. There is the recent theory that dark matter may be accounted for by early forming black holes. I suppose there is plenty of dark matter to go around,.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2211215119