BREAKING NEWS: First Dark Galaxy Found?

A cloud of gas in the Virgo Cluster may be the first dark galaxy ever found.
The mysterious object has one-tenth the Milky Way's mass but consists of
hydrogen gas and dark matter--with no detectable stars.

"If we can pin down what it is, it'll be an interesting clue to galaxy
formation," says Martin Rees of Cambridge University, who was not part of
the discovery team. "It could be a dark halo where, for some reason, some
of the gas was swept out or the gas is more spread out than in a typical
galaxy."

The full story is at http://KenCroswell.com/FirstDarkGalaxy.html .

Correct email: MagnificentUniverse "at" yahoo "dot" com.

In message , Magnificent
Universe writes
A cloud of gas in the Virgo Cluster may be the first dark galaxy ever found.
The mysterious object has one-tenth the Milky Way's mass but consists of
hydrogen gas and dark matter--with no detectable stars.

"If we can pin down what it is, it'll be an interesting clue to galaxy
formation," says Martin Rees of Cambridge University, who was not part of
the discovery team. "It could be a dark halo where, for some reason, some
of the gas was swept out or the gas is more spread out than in a typical
galaxy."

Interesting, but wasn't a "dark galaxy" reported about 18 months ago?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4272
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"Jonathan Silverlight" wrote
in message ...
In message , Magnificent
Universe writes
A cloud of gas in the Virgo Cluster may be the first dark galaxy ever
found.
The mysterious object has one-tenth the Milky Way's mass but consists of
hydrogen gas and dark matter--with no detectable stars.

"If we can pin down what it is, it'll be an interesting clue to galaxy
formation," says Martin Rees of Cambridge University, who was not part of
the discovery team. "It could be a dark halo where, for some reason,
some
of the gas was swept out or the gas is more spread out than in a typical
galaxy."

Interesting, but wasn't a "dark galaxy" reported about 18 months ago?
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn4272

That claim seems not to have ever been published in a refereed journal.

To quote the story on the Virgo cloud: "Astronomers have reported
discoveries of other dark galaxies in the past--but these claims met with
equally dark fates....Minchin and his colleagues hope their dark galaxy
fares better."

And to quote Martin Rees: "I think it's an interesting observation and a
clearly written paper where they are aware of all of the obvious
uncertainties because, as they say themselves, there have been lots and lots
of searches for these so-called unborn galaxies, and the earlier candidates
have either proved to have stars in them or proved to be disrupted galaxies,
and they've tried to rule out those options in this case."


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Magnificent Universe wrote:
A cloud of gas in the Virgo Cluster may be the first dark galaxy ever found.
The mysterious object has one-tenth the Milky Way's mass but consists of
hydrogen gas and dark matter--with no detectable stars.

"If we can pin down what it is, it'll be an interesting clue to galaxy
formation," says Martin Rees of Cambridge University, who was not part of
the discovery team. "It could be a dark halo where, for some reason, some
of the gas was swept out or the gas is more spread out than in a typical
galaxy."

The full story is at http://KenCroswell.com/FirstDarkGalaxy.html .

Perhaps Hubble should do a deep high resolution image of this dark
galaxy ... maybe it will show up in the background of other normal more
distant galaxies?