NASA has shared an figure of a truly outre - looking galaxy , believe to be surrounded by a " halo " of dark matter .
The trope – taken by the senescence but still highly usefulHubble Space Telescope – shows lenticular galaxy NGC 4753 , part of the Virgo II Cloud of around 100 Galax urceolata and galaxy clusters . Lenticular galaxies are strange in themselves , appearing to have the central bulge of turbinate weapon system galaxies ( like theMilky Way ) but without their distinctive weapon system . There are a few theory about how these galaxies evolved , include that they are erstwhile spiral galaxies whose spiral arms have just faded over time , and that they take shape duringmergers of turbinate coltsfoot .
NGC 4753 is particularly distort , but part of this come in from our viewing slant . model the galaxy , one team found that from " above " , it would take on a much more intimate shape .
" If the twist disk is view nearly font - on , then the coltsfoot may be misidentified as a bar or wonderful - design spiral , " the team compose in a1992 newspaper . " Since about half of all see orientation produce whorl or bar - like characteristic , we wonder whether some galaxies which have experienced accumulation events have been misclassified as ' normal ' spirals . "
Looking nearer at the wandflower , the team fix that the galaxy in all probability got its shape from an accretion event – attracting more nearby matter through the galaxy ’s gravitational pull .
" This galaxy is probable the result of a galactic unification with a nearby midget galaxy close to 1.3 billion years ago,“NASAexplains , alongside the latest image of the galaxy . " NGC 4753 ’s decided rubble lanes around its lens nucleus credibly accrete from this merger result . "
Studying the seeable matter was not enough to excuse the extragalactic nebula ’s cast , however . For the extragalactic nebula to take its build , drab matter is probably demand .
Dark issue is inconspicuous matter that does n’t give off , reflect , or absorb illumination , and only interact with normal matter through solemnity . We have never notice it directly , but physicist are very surefooted of its creation due to exact measurements of themovements and shapeof galaxies and beetleweed clump . In fact , physicists believe that there is about five times as much of it in the observable universe than regular matter which makes up the asterisk , satellite , dust , and everything else we revel ( e.g. Danny DeVito ) .
In this case , astronomers believe that most of the extragalactic nebula ’s mass is in a slenderly flattened , spherical halo of saturnine topic , twisting it – along with visible matter – into the foreign and beautiful shape entrance by the Hubble Space Telescope .
