A team from the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) has quantified for the first time the impact that the motions of binary stars can have on estimates of dark matter in some of the smallest galaxies in the universe. The study proposes a new methodology that will make it possible to obtain more precise measurements of the amount of dark matter present in these systems. The Milky Way, our galaxy, contains hundreds of billions of stars. However, dozens of much smaller galaxies orbit around it, dwarf companions that host thousands of times fewer stars and live embedded within our galaxy
Advertised on