The giant light disk of the Milky Way galaxy is twisted and distorted in puzzling ways. The “culprit” may be the most common yet most enigmatic substance in the universe.
According to Science Alert, a research team led by Dr. Jiwon Jesse Han from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has investigated the longstanding mystery of a colossal, invisible entity that seems to be causing the galactic disk containing Earth—the Milky Way—to warp and twist.
They identified the main culprit as “dark matter”, an invisible substance that accounts for a significant portion of the total mass of the universe, as indicated by many previous estimates.
An invisible dark matter halo enveloping the Milky Way, distorting and causing the galactic disk to warp – (Photo: CfA).
A distorted dark matter halo surrounding and permeating our galaxy has created this strange warping effect.
According to Dr. Han, this dark halo tilts in the same direction as the stellar halo, revealed through data regarding the very skewed stellar halo of the galaxy. Although it is invisible, it still interacts with the gas around the stars, leaving behind traces.
This mysterious, ominous mass is so large that it nearly encompasses the entire Milky Way.
The research team constructed a model based on this scenario, with the dark halo tilted at about 25 degrees, while also calculating the orbits of stars and gas in the galaxy over 5 billion years.
The model showed a perfect match with observations from the Gaia satellite regarding the Milky Way, a sky-mapping warrior of the European Space Agency (ESA), which has provided humanity with the opportunity to better understand the shape of the galaxy we inhabit.
However, the way it envelops the galaxy is not only non-threatening but could also open new doors for astronomers to explore the formation history of the Milky Way.
