A faint trail of stars in a distant galaxy has helped astronomers uncover a discovery that could provide new clues about dark matter and how galaxies form and evolve. Researchers found the barely visible stellar trail in archival data from the Hubble Space Telescope. It is the first globular cluster stellar stream detected outside the Milky Way.
The stream is located in a galaxy around 115 million light-years from Earth and is the remains of a dense group of stars being slowly pulled apart by the gravity of its host galaxy, reported CNN .
When stars gradually break away from a star cluster, the remaining stars form a long, thin stellar stream. Details of this discovery were published in a study in the journal Nature . She noted that the team then began considering the possibilities for further research. The true nature of dark matter remains a mystery to scientists. its gravitational effects on stars and galaxies are detectable Although it cannot be observed directly.
Astronomers have discovered dozens of such stellar streams in the Milky Way, but many remain undetected due to their extremely faint light. Scientists estimate that dark matter makes up about 80 to 85 percent of the universe, therefore, efforts to understand it are crucial, according to Kiel Holm. Modeling the stellar stream helped scientists map the galaxy named UGC 9050-Dw1 and study its gravitational field.
Now, this new discovery offers the potential to apply the same technique to better understand the quantity and structure of dark matter in other galaxies.
Scientists have previously used stellar streams to study dark matter within the Milky Way.
