Strong skepticism should always accompany strong claims . One such recent title has bring forth a short ton of talk about a strange , fuzzed galaxy that is likely omit its dark matter .
That a galaxy would have no dreary matter is an amazing finding , and it was covered rather uncritically by lots of newsworthiness outlets ( including us ! ) . Since then , some scientists have take to social media and the arXiv science paper server to discourse the light data used to make the surprising conclusion .
“ The mind we were envision a firm signature of a blue matter - free system seems wrong , ” Michelle Collins , uranology lector at the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom , told Gizmodo .
Ultra-diffuse galaxy NGC1052-DF2Image: Pieter van Dokkum/Ryan F. Mandelbaum
Last calendar month , the prestigious skill diary Nature bring out a prominent observation from a team of astronomers with a statute title akin to uranology clickbait : “ A galaxy lacking black affair . ” Using their telescope , the Dragonfly Telephoto Array , they spotted a dim galaxy shaped like afuzzyand roughly the same breadth as the Milky Way . They observed the speed of 10 hopeful collections of stars and agnize that it appeared the galaxy was moving way slower than they await .
That would imply to the researchers that NGC1052 - DF2 was missing the dark matter that many uranologist call back seduce up the vast majority of most galaxies ’ mass .
dingy affair , you might remember , draw a problem more than a solution . observance of the universe ’s gravitation seem to evidence more wad than astronomer can appraise with their telescope , perhaps five to six times more . physicist generally think there ’s a new kind of affair yet to be discover , though many instead argue that the law of gravity have a hole . you may say a galax ’s deal establish on how quickly it turn out — the more mass it has , the faster it would have to spin in order not to collapse . Most galaxies rotate too tight , while , according to Yale University scientist Pieter van Dokkum ’s team , NGC1052 - DF2 barely rotates at all .
most all news electric outlet who covered the story ( again , include me ) generally account the findings of the Nature paper without serious dubiety . But some stargazer are n’t convinced .
At the gist of the discussion is statistic . It’smathematically difficultto make any conclusions using very modest datasets , peculiarly when you ’re talking about just 10 clusters of stars in an integral galaxy , explained Nicolas Martin , stargazer at the Observatory in Strasbourg in France said in aTwitter ribbon . He and others craunch the data other than , and found that for certain , mayhap the coltsfoot was miss dark matter , but mayhap it was n’t . “ The current information set does n’t justify such a potent termination , ” he spell . He ’s since publishedthe analysiswith others , include Collins , on the arXiv server .
One of the disagreements , for example , stems from what to do with one of the 10 globular clustering that seems to be an outlier from the other nine establish on how it moves . Both group weigh it differently , Collins severalise me .
Van Dokkum has since addressedsome of the concernson a personal web site , and thought the debate was “ escape the forest from the Tree . ” He noted to Gizmodo in an e-mail that folks generally concur with a similar velocity spread of the globular clusters , one that mean far less dark matter than the average galaxy — so it ’s still “ lacking ” sour matter , but maybe not “ missing ” dreary matter . But Collins respond to me that if you attempt to base the mass of more intimate dark matter - satisfy beetleweed on just 10 specially selected globose clusters , you may make them , too , seem to not have any dark matter .
There are other rebutter to van Dokkum ’s claims , includinganother arXiv paperdiscussing whether the observation really challenge alternative theories to explain the seed of the poppycock we call “ saturnine affair . ” Another discusses the behavior of these “ ultra - soft ” galaxiesmore generally . However , it is important to note that van Dokkum and his team ’s report have been peer reviewed by editor at Nature , but the arXiv papers have not yet been reviewed or assume in any journal .
But the public debate has been going on for several weekson Twitter . One astronomy grad student , Mia de los Reyes at CalTech in California , even turned the give-and-take into an American Chopper meme :
https://twitter.com/embed/status/985709819649703936
Original study generator Van Dokkum himself does n’t take care the debate — he calls it “ excellent , ” and “ exactly what we are all presuppose to do , trying to replicate each other ’s issue and looking for loopholes in the interpretation . ” He tell Gizmodo he also think it was good to see the use of social media and the arXiv preprint waiter to give voice to younger uranologist with good idea .
It would take a lot to convince Collins that the coltsfoot was truly overlook dingy matter ’s essence . “ You ’d need significantly more data than they have give here , ” she pronounce .
But primarily this work to show science at its very core : It ’s an ever - change news report where evidence and argument take us closer to the truth . And it ’s a good reminder of something that destiny of science writers , include me , did n’t put on to this theme : We necessitate to stay on skeptical about any Modern outcome until the larger science community has had metre to digest and debate them .
[ arXiv1,2,3,Twitter ]
This post has been update .
AstronomyAstrophysicsDark matterPhysicsScience
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