The Dark Side

In the beginning, far, far away galaxies like our own Milky Way were formed and over billions of years they got bigger through the coming together of many smaller galaxies.  During the merger, small stars of the galaxy were pulled apart and scattered to form tiny relic galaxies while the big central globular cluster that survived the gravitational tug-of-war was able to gain more star material.  Astronomers were able to work out where dark matter is concentrated because it distorts light from distant stars.  The greater the distortion, the greater the concentration of dark matter.  Dwarf galaxies contain greater proportions of dark matter than large spirals and most of dark matter is in the outer parts of our galaxy.  A large region called a “halo” of dark matter encircles the Milky Way and represents the greatest concentration of the dark matter of the galaxy.  There is little to no normal matter in…