Several independent groups have now reported the oddly sluggish orbits of stars along the Milky Way’s outer rim, the peripheral edge of our galaxy’s luminous whorl. Last year the Gaia team released the space-based telescope’s most precise measurements yet, spurring astronomers to refresh their galaxy-spanning assessments of stellar behavior. This head-scratcher stems from the European Space Agency’s Gaia satellite, which provides unparalleled information on the speeds and positions of nearly two billion stars in the Milky Way. Another is that our core conceptions about dark matter-such as how much of it exists in the universe-are somehow deeply flawed. One possible explanation for the Milky Way’s stellar slowpokes is that our galaxy is extraordinarily deficient in dark matter, the invisible substance thought to serve as gravitational scaffolding for cosmic structures. They’re traveling far slower than similarly situated stars in other galaxies. Recent measurements suggest that stars at the outskirts of our galaxy are misbehaving. There’s something strange going on with the Milky Way.
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