Galaxy Without Dark Matter Challenges Current Science

A galaxy without dark matter has come to light in the constellation Perseus. Find out why this poses a puzzle for astronomers and challenges cosmology’s explanation of how our universe began.

Amateur stargazers like me find it hard to locate galaxies in the night sky. I guess we shouldn’t be too hard on ourselves, since the existence of other galaxies only came to light about 100 years ago.

That’s when astronomer Edwin Hubble realized the Andromeda Galaxy was unimaginably far away. That meant there were other galaxies far beyond the Milky Way.

On a clear, dark Autumn night far from the light pollution of cities, we can spot our nearest galactic neighbour by looking toward the constellation Andromeda, and we don’t need binoculars or a telescope. If we’re ambitious, we can also find another galaxy called M33 in the nearby constellation Triangulum.

What Seemed Like Settled Science Had to be Reconsidered

Finding out about these other galaxies upset cosmologists’ apple cart in the early 20th century. What seemed like settled science had to be reconsidered from several perspectives.