{"id":228240,"date":"2026-01-11T13:17:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T13:17:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/228240\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T13:17:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T13:17:12","slug":"scientists-weirded-out-by-cosmic-bones-in-distant-space","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/228240\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists Weirded Out by Cosmic Bones in Distant Space"},"content":{"rendered":"

Current theories suggest that dark matter<\/a> \u2014 the mysterious substance that\u2019s believed not to emit, absorb, or reflect light \u2014 dominates in the known universe, making up over 85 percent of all matter.<\/p>\n

But thanks to its elusiveness, it remains incredibly difficult to study, leaving a significant gap in our understanding of what determines the structures and shapes of celestial objects that crowd our astronomical observations.<\/p>\n

Now, an international team of researchers claims to have used NASA\u2019s Hubble Space Telescope to discover an entirely new type of celestial object: dubbed \u201cCloud-9,\u201d it\u2019s a \u201cstarless, gas-rich, dark-matter cloud,\u201d per the European Space Agency<\/a>. The lack of stars caught the team by surprise, indicating Cloud-9 was a \u201cfossil leftover\u201d \u2014 what ScienceAlert memorably termed<\/a> the \u201cdark-matter bones of a failed galaxy.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a tale of a failed galaxy,\u201d said Milano-Bicocca University physics assistant professor Alejandro Benitez-Llambay, coauthor of a paper<\/a> published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, in an ESA statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn science, we usually learn more from the failures than from the successes,\u201d he added. \u201cIn this case, seeing no stars is what proves the theory right. It tells us that we have found in the local Universe a primordial building block of a galaxy that hasn\u2019t formed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The discovery could also allow us to better understand dark matter, the researchers argue. <\/p>\n

\u201cThis cloud is a window into the dark universe,\u201d team member and ESA astronomer Andrew Fox explained in the statement. \u201cWe know from theory that most of the mass in the Universe is expected to be dark matter, but it\u2019s difficult to detect this dark material because it doesn\u2019t emit light. Cloud-9 gives us a rare look at a dark-matter-dominated cloud.\u201d<\/p>\n

The research serves as a reminder that studying stars themselves often gives us a limited picture of the universe. The vast gulfs between them just might hold the key to the gaps in our understanding.<\/p>\n

Until now, astronomers have only theorized about the existence of an object like Cloud-9. The unusual gas cloud is largely made up of hydrogen gas that dates back to the very early days of the known universe, yet doesn\u2019t feature any stars.<\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Hubble telescope, however, allowed them to get an unprecedented view of the starless region, which is located 14 million light-years from Earth.<\/p>\n

\u201cBefore we used Hubble, you could argue that this is a faint dwarf galaxy that we could not see with ground-based telescopes,\u201d said lead author and Space Telescope Science Institute researcher Gagandeep Anand in the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey just didn\u2019t go deep enough in sensitivity to uncover stars,\u201d he added. \u201cBut with Hubble\u2019s Advanced Camera for Surveys, we\u2019re able to nail down that there\u2019s nothing there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cloud-9 is much smaller and compact than other hydrogen clouds in the vicinity. Its core stretches some 4,900 light-years across, with the hydrogen gas measuring in at around one million times the mass of the Sun. The researchers suspect the vast majority of its mass is made up of dark matter, which would weigh in at around five billion times the mass of the Sun.<\/p>\n

If it were any bigger, it would\u2019ve collapsed and eventually formed stars. However, it\u2019s big enough to stop the gas from dispersing, meaning it\u2019s at a rare sweet spot.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, Cloud-9\u2019s name has little to do with the common English expression, which denotes being extremely happy or over the Moon. It was named sequentially \u2014\u00a0the ninth gas cloud spotted in the vicinity surrounding spiral galaxy Messier 94 \u2014 by researchers, who first discovered it three years ago using the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in Guizhou, China.<\/p>\n

The researchers suggest many other objects like Cloud-9 may still be lurking out there \u2014 the remains of failed galaxies strewn across millions of light-years.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmong our galactic neighbors, there might be a few abandoned houses out there,\u201d suggested coauthor and Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer Rachael Beaton.<\/p>\n

More on dark matter: Scientists Claim to Detect Dark Matter for the First Time Ever<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Current theories suggest that dark matter \u2014 the mysterious substance that\u2019s believed not to emit, absorb, or reflect…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":228241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-228240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}