Invisible Dark Galaxies Finally Found?

A hypothetical phase of galaxy formation may have been observed with the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Very Large Telescope (VLT).

Experimental evidence suggests that dark galaxies exist and contain plenty of gas but no stars. They were probably present in our early universe and provided gas to larger star-forming galaxies.

An international study may have revealed a dozen dark galaxies being illuminated by quasar HE 0109-3518. (Quasars are extremely luminous galaxies thought to have supermassive black holes at their center.)

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“Our approach to the problem of detecting a dark galaxy was simply to shine a bright light on it,” said study co-author Simon Lilly at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in a statement.

“The light from the quasar makes the dark galaxies light up in a process similar to how white clothes are illuminated by ultraviolet lamps in a night club.”

Out of nearly 100 gaseous objects found within a few million light-years of the quasar, the astronomers worked out that 12 do not contain stars and are therefore dark galaxy candidates.

“After several years of attempts to detect fluorescent emission from dark galaxies, our results demonstrate the potential of our method to discover and study these fascinating and previously invisible objects,” said study lead author Sebastiano Cantalupo at the University of California-Santa Cruz in the statement.

The team estimated that these objects contain about 1 billion times the amount of gas of the sun, and that their star formation efficiency is suppressed more than a hundred-fold compared with typical early star-forming galaxies.

“Our observations with the VLT have provided evidence for the existence of compact and isolated dark clouds,” Cantalupo said.

“With this study, we’ve made a crucial step towards revealing and understanding the obscure early stages of galaxy formation and how galaxies acquired their gas.”

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