Around the Milky Way , there are many satellite galaxies . The spatial distribution of eleven of the small and faint ones which appear to lie on a thin planing machine is something that has been remark as not just quirky but very puzzling by astronomer . For ten , data suggested that these were actually all rotating on this vast woodworking plane , something that would be super unlikely using our current reason of the universe . Now , new information has puzzle out this 50 - yr problem .
The " planing machine of satellites " problem was a bounteous job for the existence ofdark matter , a mysterious substance that makes up about 85 per centum of all matter in the universe and is one of the crucial element of the Standard Model of Cosmology . grant to the model , galaxies mould step by step from clumps of inhuman dark topic .
The issue saw the distribution of minor extragalactic nebula as orbiting all in a vast thin magnetic disk of 3D space with no known account for how this statistical distribution issue forth to be . Now , datum from theEuropean Space Agency ’s Gaia Satelliteshows the most precise measurement of the motions of these galaxies and it turn out that it is not a literal plane . These galaxy are aligned but they are make a motion in different direction .
“ The woodworking plane of satellites was unfeignedly judgement - boggling , ” lead generator Dr Till Sawala , of the University of Helsinki , said in astatement . “ It is perhaps unsurprising that a puzzler which has endured for almost 50 yr required a combination of method to puzzle out it – and an external team to come together . ”
The researchers correct the show of the satellites on a aeroplane is a " quirk " that will dissipate over clip much like the shape of constellations in the night sky . constellation may await a sealed means now , but over eons , as they move , their shape will exchange . The plane is there but it is a transient positioning , not a physical planer of rotation .
" The foreign coalition of the Milky Way ’s satellite galaxies in the sky had perplexed astronomers for decades , so much so that it was deemed to pose a unplumbed challenge to cosmological orthodoxy,“co - author Professor Carlos Frenk , from Durham University , explained .
" But thanks to the amazing data from the GAIA satellite and the laws of natural philosophy , we now know that the plane is just a luck alignment , a matter of being in the good property at the right time , just as the constellations of ace in the sky . "
As he noted , “ come up back in a billion eld , and the woodworking plane will have disintegrated , as will today ’s constellations . "
This discovery removes one of the outstanding challenges to the cold black subject possibility of the evolution of the universe .
The findings are issue inNature Astronomy .
