Computer simulations of the evolution of matter distribution in the universe predict hundreds of low mass
dwarf galaxies for every Milky Way - like galaxy.
Astronomers have been studying stars in
dwarf galaxies for decades, striving to reconstruct their origin and to uncover the past history of our Galaxy and its environment.
For the past four years, the LAT team has been searching
dwarf galaxies for hints of dark matter.
Not exact matches
«Stars in a
dwarf galaxy often move around at random, but this is not exactly the case
for Andromeda II.
Newberg adds that physicists hunting
for particles of dark matter wafting through the Milky Way might detect fragments of Sagittarius, because many astronomers suspect that
dwarf galaxies are especially rich in dark matter.
Astronomers have developed a number of theories
for why we haven't found more, but none of them could account
for both the paucity of
dwarf galaxies and their properties, including their mass, size, and density.
The unseen movers are fast - moving white
dwarf stars that could account
for as much as one - third of the
galaxy's dark matter.
This image, taken by accomplished astrophotographer R. Jay Gabany in collaboration with David Martinez - Delgado from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) and his international team, shows
for the first time in intricate detail the aftermath of a large
galaxy destroying and consuming its
dwarf neighbor.
The annihilation rates have a signature non-monotonic velocity dependence over and above the resonances, e.g.,
for DM mass larger than 4 TeV the galactic annihilation rate (solid line) exceeds that in clusters (dashed line) and
dwarf galaxies (dot - dashed line).
That's a happy conclusion, given that red
dwarfs are the most common stars in the
galaxy and also the easiest targets
for ground - based telescopes.
The
dwarf galaxy Andromeda VII (diffuse, centered), also known as PGC 2807155, is an example of a low surface brightness
galaxy ideal
for assessing MONDian predictions.
The study, «Is the Vast Polar Structure of
Dwarf Galaxies a Serious Problem
for CDM?»
Because
dwarf galaxies do not host other gamma ray sources, they make ideal laboratories to search
for signs of dark matter annihilation.
A search
for nearby
dwarf galaxies that should show the same signal have proved fruitless, leaving physicists disappointed after five years of excitement.
«We did not detect significant emission with the LAT, but the
dwarf galaxies that DES has and will discover are extremely important targets
for the dark matter search,» said Peter Michelson, spokesperson
for the LAT collaboration.
It may be that are a huge number of
dwarf spheroidal
galaxies out there, something that would have profound consequences
for our ideas about the evolution of the cosmos.»
Because
dwarf galaxies contain so few stars, this suggests that whatever is responsible
for FRB 121102 has a better chance of forming in tiny
galaxies than large, spiral ones.
The origin of a fast radio burst in this type of
dwarf galaxy suggests a connection to other energetic events that occur in similar
dwarf galaxies, said co-author and UC Berkeley astronomer Casey Law, who led development of the data - acquisition system and created the analysis software to search
for rapid, one - off bursts.
Scientists took measurements to see what was happening inside the
galaxies, and something didn't add up; the ultra-compact
dwarf galaxies had more mass than their stars alone could account
for.
One explanation
for the supermassive black hole inside the ultra-compact
dwarf galaxies is that the
galaxies were once made up of billions of stars.
Myung Gyoon Lee and In Sung Jang were looking
for ultra faint
dwarf (UFD)
galaxies, remnants of the universe's first
galaxies.
Two of them — a more extensive survey of luminous
galaxies, intended to tease out more information about
galaxy clustering on large scales, and a more sensitive search
for the cannibalized remnants of
dwarf galaxies — will extend recent findings from the second Sloan survey.
Sagittarius's merger with the Milky Way is not a simple collision — the
dwarf galaxy has followed a looping, spiraling inward orbit
for the past few billion years that has drawn it repeatedly into contact with the Milky Way.
For decades astronomers have used computer models to predict how these
dwarf galaxies should orbit large
galaxies.
Rather than studying bright stars, the two students used Hubble Space Telescope data from 274
dwarf stars, which were serendipitously observed by the orbiting observatory while it was looking
for the most distant
galaxies in the early Universe.
«
Dwarf galaxies are the building blocks
for galaxies like the Milky Way,» Governato notes.
Understanding this relationship is important
for the countless magnetic objects across the
galaxy, including exoplanets, brown
dwarfs and neutron stars,» explained lead author and PhD student at UCL Mullard Space Science Laboratory, William Dunn.
A Carnegie - based search of nearby
galaxies for their oldest stars has uncovered two stars in the Sculptor
dwarf galaxy that were born shortly after the
galaxy formed, approximately 13 billion years ago.
Dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way lack other types of gamma - ray emitters and contain large amounts of dark matter
for their size — in fact, they're the most dark - matter - dominated sources known.
A recently discovered
dwarf galaxy in the constellation Lynx may serve well as a proxy
for better understanding the developing chemistry of the early universe, according to a research team that includes University of Virginia astronomers.
«There's about a one - in - 12 chance that what we're seeing in the
dwarf galaxies is not even a signal at all, just a fluctuation in the gamma - ray background,» explained Elliott Bloom, a member of the LAT Collaboration at the Kavli Institute
for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology, jointly located at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University.
The
dwarf galaxies that usually host superluminous supernovas are known to have a low metal content, which was thought to be an essential ingredient
for making these explosions.
A stunning claim that 40 percent of our
galaxy's 160 billion red
dwarf stars have plus - sized Earths orbiting the right distance
for liquid water to exist on their surfaces, a condition believed to be necessary
for life.
There have been similar claims
for an extensive plane of
dwarf galaxies about our own Milky Way Galaxy, with some claiming that the existence of such strange structures points to a failing in our understanding of the fundamental nature of the Universe.
Ultra-diffuse
galaxies (UDGs) are notable
for their extreme low surface brightness nature and extended radii; they have the stellar mass and appearance of
dwarf spheroidal
galaxies but the stellar radii of larger
galaxies like the Milky Way.
Red
dwarf stars like these account
for as much as 80 percent of the stars in our
galaxy.
However, as it is much brighter than typical
dwarf spheroids, Sidney van dan Bergh has recently introduced the term «Spheroidal Galaxy»
for this and similar
galaxies, including Local Group members NGC 147 and NGC 185.
Their merger into large
galaxies, therefore, could explain how fresh material is available
for the formation of G -
dwarf stars.
An intensive study of a neighboring
dwarf galaxy has surprised astronomers by showing that most of its molecular gas — the raw material
for new stars — is scattered among clumps in the
galaxy's outskirts, not near its center as they expected.
Red
dwarfs are the most common types of stars in our
galaxy, and astronomers looking
for habitable exoplanets think that the first alien biosignatures will be detected on worlds in these systems.
One of the key science drivers
for the extension was the study of proper motions of stars in
dwarf galaxies, which requires observations taken over as long a time baseline as possible.
While theory and observations agree
for galaxies with circular velocities above ~ 100 km / s, theory predicts far more
dwarfs below this velocity than we observe.
A hunt
for merging
dwarf galaxies has yielded an intriguing result: 180 million light - years away, a
galaxy very similar to the Milky Way — with two
dwarf -
galaxy satellites just like our own Magellanic clouds.
On the other hand, several similarities were discovered with the chemical composition observed
for stars in nearby massive
dwarf galaxies, such as Sagittarius and the Large Magellanic Cloud.
«Our study went beyond: joining these two exceptional data sets, we could
for the first time extract information about both the
dwarf galaxy's motion and about the motions of stars within it,» explains Massari.
Hunting
for merging
dwarf galaxies in various environments, Paudel and Sengupta found UGC 4703, an interacting pair of
dwarf galaxies that are located near the isolated spiral
galaxy NGC 2718.
Since they contain up to 99 percent dark matter and just one percent observable matter,
dwarf galaxies are ideal
for testing whether existing dark matter models are correct.
Faint
dwarf galaxies offer a good place to look
for these differences.
Some astronomers believe brown
dwarfs may exist in large numbers, helping account
for the so - called missing mass» of galaxiesmatter
galaxies seem to contain that can not be accounted
for by observed celestial objects.
This group is notable
for containing a large number of medium - sized
dwarf galaxies.