Hubble views a galactic oddity
Published Date: 5/3/2022
Source: phys.org
The ultra-diffuse galaxy GAMA 526784 appears as a tenuous patch of light in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. This wispy object resides in the constellation Hydra, roughly four billion light-years from Earth. Ultra-diffuse galaxies such as GAMA 526784 have a number of peculiarities. For example, they can have either very low or high amounts of dark matter, the invisible substance thought to make up the majority of matter in the universe. Observations of ultra-diffuse galaxies found some with an almost complete lack of dark matter, whereas others consist of almost nothing but dark matter. Another oddity of this class of galaxies is their unusual abundance of bright globular clusters, something not observed in other types of galaxies.