Gaia Probe The mysterious "ghost" galaxy is located next to the Milky Way

Astronomers have discovered a "ghost" galaxy obscured behind the disk of the Milky Way.

This body, called Antila 2 or Ant 2, is 10,000 times smaller than other known satellites of the Milky Way and constitutes a dwarf galaxy.

"Ant 2" was discovered by an international team that examined data from the Gaya satellite of the European Space Agency looking for the old mineral star-deficient stars that are often found in this type of galaxies.

"It's the specter of the galaxy," said Gabriel Turealba, author of the research. Antibodies like Ant2 have never been seen, and their discovery has only been possible thanks to the quality of the Gaia data. "

According to the team of scientists, dwarf galaxies were the first to form in the primitive universe. Despite their imposing size, they provide much less light than expected.

The team used data on the variables "RR Lyrae". to locate the hidden object near the Milky Way.

"The stars of RR Lyrae have been found in all known satellite data, so we were not surprised to learn a collection of them on the disk of our galaxy," said co-author Vasily Pelukorov of the Cambridge Astronomy Institute. Heaven, it turns out we found a new object. "

But the team realized they did not have the time to get more data, because the ground movement would soon make "Ant 2" invisible for months.

However, they were able to measure the spectrum of more than 100 giant red stars at the right time, which allowed them to confirm the discovery.

According to the group, "Ant 2" is about 130,000 light-years away from the Milky Way galaxy and has a much smaller mass than expected, given its size.

We still do not know why the giant size and the low light of Ant 2.

Source: Daily Mail