Galaxy dark matter halos as a research area focuses on the structure, composition, and dynamical role of extended, non-luminous mass distributions surrounding galaxies, investigated primarily through gravitational effects such as rotation curves, strong and weak lensing, satellite kinematics, and large-scale structure. This field addresses halo density profiles, concentration–mass relations, subhalo populations, and their dependence on cosmological parameters and dark matter models (e.g., cold vs. warm). It also studies baryon–halo interactions, including feedback-driven core formation, galaxy–halo connection (abundance matching, halo occupation), and the impact of halos on galaxy formation, evolution, and environmental processes within the cosmological context.
Galaxy clusters are among the largest structures in our universe, consisting of hundreds or thousands of galaxies that have become gravitationally bound together over billions of years. Astrophysicists have long been eager ...
Astronomy
Aug 5, 2025
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We usually think of satellites as small objects orbiting planets or stars. But in the broader universe, galaxies themselves can have satellites—smaller galaxies bound by gravity that orbit a larger host, carrying with them ...
Astronomy
Aug 5, 2025
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Dark matter is one of nature's most confounding mysteries. It keeps particle physicists up at night and cosmologists glued to their supercomputer simulations. We know it's real because its mass prevents galaxies from falling ...
Astronomy
Jul 12, 2025
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A USC-led research team has created a series of supercomputer-simulated twins of our Milky Way galaxy—which could help scientists unlock new answers about one of the biggest mysteries in the universe: dark matter, the invisible ...
Astronomy
Jun 16, 2025
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Dark matter affects how stars move within galaxies, how galaxies build up over time, and how everything in the universe is held together—but no existing tool has directly detected it. While dark matter does not reflect, absorb, ...
Astronomy
Jun 12, 2025
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The ongoing search for dark matter, the elusive type of matter that does not emit, absorb or reflect light and is estimated to account for most of the universe's mass, has not yet yielded conclusive results. Axions, hypothetical ...
Earth—our tiny blue dot in the galaxy—is approximately 26,000 light years away from a fascinating and active region of the Milky Way called the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ). This region holds clues about how stars are born, ...
Astronomy
May 19, 2025
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An international team of astronomers has solved one of the longstanding cosmic mysteries by uncovering direct evidence of a massive, long-lost object that collided with the Perseus cluster. Using high-resolution data from ...
Astronomy
Apr 21, 2025
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Astronomers using W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea, Hawaiʻi Island have found compelling evidence of a dark matter-deficient dwarf galaxy, FCC 224. This ultra-diffuse galaxy is located on the outskirts of the Fornax Cluster, ...
Astronomy
Apr 15, 2025
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Every galaxy is thought to form at the center of a dark matter halo—a region of gravitationally bound matter that extends far beyond the visible boundaries of a galaxy. Stars are formed when gravity within dark matter halos ...
Astronomy
Apr 8, 2025
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