A team of European astronomers has made observations of a number of dwarf galaxies and found no confirmation that they are surrounded by a halo of dark matter. This result contradicts the standard cosmological model.
According to the standard cosmological model, the vast majority of galaxies are surrounded by a halo consisting of particles of mysterious dark matter. It does not participate in electromagnetic interaction and is therefore inaccessible to direct observation. At the same time, it can be detected by the gravitational effect on neighboring galaxies.
A group of European astronomers decided to test the positions of the standard model. To do this, they used dwarf galaxies in the Fornax constellation. In theory, dark matter halos should protect them from tidal interactions caused by the gravity of their neighbors. Therefore, scientists analyzed the expected level of disturbance experienced by dwarf galaxies, and then compared it with real images of the cluster.
It turned out that some of the dwarf galaxies in the Fornax Cluster have a distorted shape, which indicates the absence of a stabilizing effect from the dark matter halo. In addition, the scientists compared the observed picture with theoretical calculations of the distortion level depending on the internal properties of galaxies and their distance from the center of the cluster. It turned out that if the distortions were explained within the framework of the standard model, then the galaxies should have already collapsed.
Earlier, astronomers have already found several galaxies that do not have a halo of dark matter. According to the most popular version, they lost it due to collisions with their neighbors.
Earlier we talked about how the James Webb Telescope discovered traces of ancient dark matter.
According to https://phys.org
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