{"id":15664,"date":"2015-05-18T01:00:46","date_gmt":"2015-05-18T11:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=15664"},"modified":"2015-05-16T16:59:52","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T02:59:52","slug":"scientists-at-keck-discover-the-fluffiest-galaxies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=15664","title":{"rendered":"Scientists at Keck Discover the Fluffiest Galaxies"},"content":{"rendered":"

W. M. Keck Observatory press release<\/a>…<\/p>\n

\"Ultra-Diffuse<\/a>
A collection of unidentified blobs was discovered toward the Coma cluster of galaxies, using the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. Credit: P. Van Dokkum, R. Abraham, J. Brodie<\/figcaption><\/figure>An international team of researchers led by Pieter van Dokkum at Yale University have used the W. M. Keck Observatory to confirm the existence of the most diffuse class of galaxies known in the universe. These “fluffiest galaxies” are nearly as wide as our own Milky Way galaxy \u2013 about 60,000 light years \u2013 yet harbor only one percent as many stars. The findings were recently published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the Milky Way is a sea of stars, then these newly discovered galaxies are like wisps of clouds\u201d, said van Dokkum. \u201cWe are beginning to form some ideas about how they were born and it\u2019s remarkable they have survived at all. They are found in a dense, violent region of space filled with dark matter and galaxies whizzing around, so we think they must be cloaked in their own invisible dark matter \u2018shields\u2019 that are protecting them from this intergalactic assault.\u201d<\/p>\n

The team made the latest discovery by combining results from one of the world’s smallest telescopes as well as the largest telescope on Earth. The Dragonfly Telephoto Array used 14-centimeter state of the art telephoto lens cameras to produce digital images of the very faint, diffuse objects. Keck Observatory\u2019s 10-meter Keck I telescope, with its Low Resolution Imaging Spectrograph, then separated the light of one of the objects into colors that diagnose its composition and distance.<\/p>\n

Finding the distance was the clinching evidence. The data from Keck Observatory showed the diffuse “blobs” are very large and very far away, about 300 million light years, rather than small and close by. The blobs can now safely be called Ultra Diffuse Galaxies (UDGs).<\/p>\n

\"Ultra-Diffuse<\/a>
Reconstructed spectrum of light spread out from the ultra-diffuse galaxy, DragonFly44, as seen by the Keck\/LRIS instrument. Credit: P. Van Dokkum, R. Abraham, J. Brodie<\/figcaption><\/figure>\u201cIf there are any aliens living on a planet in an ultra-diffuse galaxy, they would have no band of light across the sky, like our own Milky Way, to tell them they were living in a galaxy. The night sky would be much emptier of stars,\u201d said team member Aaron Romanowsky, of San Jose State University.<\/p>\n

The UDGs were found in an area of the sky called the Coma cluster, where thousands of galaxies have been drawn together in a mutual gravitational dance. \u201cOur fluffy objects add to the great diversity of galaxies that were previously known, from giant ellipticals that outshine the Milky Way, to ultra compact dwarfs,\u201d said University of California, Santa Cruz Professor Jean Brodie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big challenge now is to figure out where these mysterious objects came from,\u201d said Roberto Abraham, of the University of Toronto. \u201cAre they \u2018failed galaxies\u2019 that started off well and then ran out of gas? Were they once normal galaxies that got knocked around so much inside the Coma cluster that they puffed up? Or are they bits of galaxies that were pulled off and then got lost in space?\u201d<\/p>\n

The key next step in understanding UDGs is to to pin down exactly how much dark matter they have. Making this measurement will be even more challenging than the latest work.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

W. M. Keck Observatory press release… An international team of researchers led by Pieter van Dokkum at Yale University have used the W. M. Keck Observatory to confirm the existence of the most diffuse class of galaxies known in the universe. These “fluffiest galaxies” are nearly as wide as our own Milky Way galaxy \u2013 … Continue reading “Scientists at Keck Discover the Fluffiest Galaxies”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9],"tags":[141,50],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15664"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15664"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15664\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15670,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15664\/revisions\/15670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}