Astronomers detect mysterious ‘Blob of Darkness’ in a distant galaxy

A Cosmic Anomaly Revealed

The group researched the mechanism of JVAS B1938 +666 whereby the weight of a foreground galaxy bends the rays of a more distant galaxy to form a lens in the form of a ring. Researchers spotted an odd pinch in one of the arc images. This pinch was an indicator of an unknown, compact object that was bending the light.

This dark space seems to contain approximately one million times the mass of the Sun but does not release any light of any kind, whether optical, in a form of infrared or radio wave.

A Hidden Clump of Dark Matter?

The dark matter was originally believed to constitute most of the mass of the Universe, and the mysterious mass may be a tiny and detached lump of this material. It could also be a very small dwarf galaxy, with very little light that cannot be detected by the present-day instruments.

Future Directions

Future studies will use gravitational lensing and high-resolution radio observations to test, measure and model dark matter and their impact on galaxy formation. The constraints on their abundance, their spatial distribution and their physical properties will be narrowed down by systematic surveys. The state-of-the-art simulations would also improve the knowledge of hidden mass system of the Universe.