These types of mergers might be a key driver in the growth of massive galaxies across the universe. This will cause the dwarf galaxy’s orbit to get smaller and smaller, until the galaxy finally collides with the Milky Way in about 2 billion years. As the LMC orbits the Milky Way, the dark matter’s gravity drags on the LMC and slows it down. The interaction between the dark matter and the Large Magellanic Cloud has big implications for our galaxy. The wake observed in the new star map is thought to be the outline of this dark matter wake the stars are like leaves on the surface of this invisible ocean, their position shifting with the dark matter. If that’s the case, then as the LMC sails through this region, it should leave a wake in the dark matter as well. ![]() The LMC is located about 160,000 light-years from Earth and is less than one-quarter the mass of the Milky Way.Īlthough there are multiple theories about the nature of dark matter, all of them indicate that it should be present in the Milky Way’s halo. ![]() The new map reveals how a small galaxy called the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) – so named because it is the larger of two dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way – has sailed through the Milky Way’s galactic halo like a ship through water, its gravity creating a wake in the stars behind it. The study makes use of data collected by the spacecraft between 20. The data for the new map comes from ESA’s Gaia mission and NASA’s Near Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, or NEOWISE, which operated from 2009 to 2013 under the moniker WISE. Though the halo may appear mostly empty, it is also predicted to contain a massive reservoir of dark matter, a mysterious and invisible substance thought to make up the bulk of all the mass in the universe. Known as the galactic halo, this area lies outside the swirling spiral arms that form the Milky Way’s recognizable central disk and is sparsely populated with stars. ![]() Astronomers using data from NASA and ESA (European Space Agency) telescopes have released a new all-sky map of the outermost region of our galaxy.
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