(Vice) – An invisible cosmic behemoth might be tearing apart the closest star cluster to the Sun, leaving one side of the cluster eerily dark and devoid of stars, according to a new study.
The culprit may be a dark matter substructure, a relic that contains the mass of 10 million Suns and is made of a mysterious non-luminous substance. The possible presence of this “Galactic lump” was detected in a new map that charts out the enormous extent of the Hyades star cluster, located only 153 light-years from Earth, which was published on Wednesday in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics.
Scientists led by Tereza Jerabkova, a research fellow at the European Space Agency (ESA), came across the unnerving lump while examining the Hyades cluster using data collected by ESA’s Gaia satellite.
“This is the amazing thing about the data from the Gaia satellite—we have the chance, for the first time in history, to search for stellar structures that are hiding in the huge amount of field stars in the galaxy,” Jerabkova said in an email.
“It is a unique time for an astronomer: when looking into the data and comparing the finding with theoretical models, it definitely raises one’s heartbeat with huge excitement!” she continued. “I mean, we look up at the stars that seem to be ‘just points’ on the dark sky and it is incredible how much we can learn about the universe and from them.” READ MORE
