Dark galaxies beyond in the Local Group

Dwarf galaxies are like the building blocks to massive galaxies.

Our Local Group is located on a sidestreet 50 million lightyears from the incredible intersection of two black matter filaments. These dark matter filaments created the spectacular Virgo Cluster which contains about 2,000 galaxies. Our little galactic neighbourhood would appear as two smudges in light to the alien astronomers living within the Virgo Cluster: the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Andromeda Galaxy. They might be considered “binary stars” on an extraterrestrials star chart. Virgo astronomers wouldn’t be able to locate the nearly four dozen small, dwarf galaxies which make up our Local Group without using powerful telescopes.

Local Group’s benign name may not reflect the fact that the neighborhood is more like a Wild West frontier town. You will find murder, mayhem, and even cannibalism on the streets. In reality we’re seeing order emerge from chaos of energy & matter that followed the birth of the universe; the Local Group, a microcosm of the large and rowdy cosmos, is what we see.

OUTNUMBERED

The Milky Way Galaxy and Andromeda are the three biggest galaxies of our Local Group. Each of them has their own satellite galaxies. The Large Magellanic Clouds and Small Magellanic Clouds are some of the most iconic satellites in our Milky Way. But there are many dwarf galaxies also orbiting around us.

It is not difficult to see why astronomers believe that dwarf galaxy are the most common type. Common does not mean easy to identify. Diminutive galaxies are made up of as few as 1000 to several million stars. The Milky Way has between 200 and 400 Billion stars. Dwarf galaxies are not only smaller and less dense than large galaxy but also much fainter.

CELESTIAL FAMILY TREE

There are many ways to create dwarf galaxies.

The cosmos’ dark matter framework likely pulled together the universe’s earliest dwarf galaxies. The map of our universe shows that most galaxies have been organized into clusters. However some galaxies may be located along filaments linking the clusters. Cosmologists suggest that dark matter might undergird those filaments. They act as highways and guide galaxies into the gravitational pull of large clusters. This would explain why dwarf galactices are typically found in the larger group of galaxy.

But this isn’t the only method dwarf galaxies develop. NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer in 2009 discovered that dwarf galaxies were formed only from leftover gas from the earlier universe. This means that new galaxies don’t contain any dark matter. The Leo Ring, an enormous cloud of hydrogen or helium around two massive galaxies in Leo constellation was where the infant galaxy’s were discovered.

However they form, dwarf galaxy are likely to be the building blocks for larger galaxies. A huge galaxy will tear apart their smaller siblings, swallowing them in what’s called a galaxy merger.