When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission.The location of Cloud 9, a “failed galaxy” packed with gas and dark matter but absent of stars. | Credit: NASA, ESA, VLA, Gagandeep Anand (STScI), Alejandro Benitez-Llambay (University of Milano-Bicocca); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)Using the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have discovered a new type of cosmic object, a cloud of dark matter and gas that contains no stars. The object, located around 14 million light-years from Earth at the outskirts of the spiral galaxy Messier 94 (M94), has been nicknamed “Cloud 9.”That’s a fitting nickname, given the delight scientists would have if Cloud 9 lives up to its scientific potential. The new object could not only potentially help explain how galaxies formed from gatherings of dark matter in the early universe, but could also grant insights into the very nature of this most mysterious “stuff.”AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisement”This cloud is a window into the dark universe,” team member Andrew Fox of the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy/Space Telescope Science Institute (AURA/STScI) for the European Space Agency (ESA), said in a statement. “We know from theory that most of the mass in the universe is expected to be dark matter, but it’s difficult to detect this dark material because it doesn’t emit light. Cloud-9 gives us a rare look at a dark-matter-dominated cloud.”Dark matter is thought to account for around 85% of the “stuff” in the universe, but remains frustratingly invisible because it doesn’t interact with electromagnetic radiation such as light. That means scientists can only infer the presence of dark matter via its interaction with gravity and the influence that interaction has on ordinary matter and on light.Outweighing the particles that …
