Dwarf Galaxies Contradict Dark Matter Paradigm

Dwarf galaxies contain less than ten percent of the stars in the Milky Way. Find out how their behaviour in a region called the Fomax Cluster challenges dark matter’s existence.

Here in the Northern Hemisphere, now is the perfect time of year to view the Milky Way. I’m looking forward to enjoying this spectacular, translucent band of stars in the southern sky over the next month or two.

When we gaze at what we think of as the Milky Way, we’re looking into the core of our galaxy. Our Milky Way galaxy is a spiral and it has a few companions.

The number of stars in these companion galaxies is less than ten percent of the Milky Way’s total, so astronomers call them dwarf galaxies. They can have as few as 1,000 stars although typically they have a few billion.

Dwarf Galaxies Can Have as Few as 1,000 Stars

By way of comparison, typical galaxies contain several hundred billion stars or more. People in the Southern Hemisphere can easily see two of our companion dwarf galaxies, called the Magellanic Clouds.

Europeans named them after Ferdinand Magellan. Antonio Pigafetta, a crew member on Magellan’s…