Saturday, July 31, 2010

Dark Matter Eldorado - Science News

Dark Matter Eldorado - Science News: "After examining the stars’ compositions, Simon’s team calculated the total amount of mass in Segue 1 — both the unseen dark matter and the small number of faint, visible stars — by measuring how fast the stars move. The faster the stars orbit about the center of Segue 1, the heavier the galaxy.

The team found that although the stars in Segue 1 have a combined mass of no more than about 1,000 suns, the mass of the whole galaxy is about 500 times larger. “That tells us that Segue 1 is made almost entirely of dark matter,” Simon says."

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