|
Galactic pancake mystery solved
By Paul Rincon
BBC News science reporter, in Birmingham
Simulations show how galaxies evolve under dark matter influence
Astronomers have figured out why a series of small galaxies surrounding the Milky Way are distributed around it in the shape of a pancake.
Theorists believed that the eleven dwarf galaxy companions should have a diffuse, spherical arrangement.
But a University of Durham team used a supercomputer to show how the galaxies could take the pancake form without challenging cosmological theory.
The results were presented at the UK National Astronomy Meeting.
According to cosmological theory, soon after the Big Bang, cold dark matter formed the first large structures in the Universe, which then collapsed under their own weight to form vast halos.
The gravitational pull of these halos sucked in normal matter, providing a focus for the formation of galaxies.
Dalje
|
