Minimum Mass For Galaxies Discovered: Breakthrough Sheds Light On Mysterious Dark Matter

August 28, 2008

Satellite galaxies studied by UCI researchers that are within 500,000 light-years from the Milky Way.
(Credit: J. Bullock/M. Geha/R. Powell; Image courtesy of University of California - Irvine)

ScienceDaily (Aug. 28, 2008) — By analyzing light from small, faint galaxies that orbit the Milky Way, UC Irvine scientists believe they have discovered the minimum mass for galaxies in the universe – 10 million times the mass of the sun.

This mass could be the smallest known "building block" of the mysterious, invisible substance called dark matter. Stars that form within these building blocks clump together and turn into galaxies.

Scientists know very little about the microscopic properties of dark matter, even though it accounts for approximately five-sixths of all matter in the universe.

"By knowing this minimum galaxy mass, we can better understand how dark matter behaves, which is essential to one day learning how our universe and life as we know it came to be," said Louis Strigari, lead author of this study and a McCue Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at UCI.

Study results are published Aug. 28 in the journal Nature.

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Posted in Science and Technology, Space Exploration