New research has managed to understand the mystery behind the anomalous amount of dark matter in the Dragonfly 44 (DF44) galaxy.
Dark matter usually represents most of the composition of galaxies. According to astronomical observations, its amount is 10 to 300 times larger than visible matter, detailed Phys.org.
However, the veracity of these numbers began to be questioned a few years ago after the discovery of the galaxy Dragonfly 44. It had 10,000 times more dark matter than stars.
A group of astronomers from the Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, the Department of Astronomy at the University of Groningen, the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands and the University of La Laguna, decided to thoroughly investigate the composition of the mysterious galaxy. Their study revealed that the total number of globular clusters around DF44, and its dark matter content, is much lower than previous findings had suggested.
Dragonfly 44 is part of the Coma Cluster, where thousands of galaxies are found. The first observations showed that its amount of dark matter was almost as large as the Milky Way, the equivalent of 1 billion solar masses.
However, the galaxy did not contain around 100 billion stars, as is the case with ours. The visible matter in DF44 was actually 1,000 times smaller, equivalent of about 100 million stars.
However, after a thorough analysis of the globular cluster system around Dragonfly 44, the researchers have managed to discover that the total amount of dark matter in the galaxy is about 300 times of luminous matter, a value considered normal.
The investigation reveales that this galaxy is neither unique nor anomalous, as previously believed.
