Astronomers say they have made "observational confirmation" of a hidden, dwarf galaxy nicknamed "Galaxy X," NBC News reports.
Researchers have long believed that mysterious ripples through the Milky Way's hydrogen gas disk could be caused by a hidden dwarf galaxy's gravitational pull. In a paper set to appear in Astrophysical Journal Letters, astronomer Sukanya Chakrabarti and her colleagues say analysis of four young star clusters are likely a "signature of this predicted galaxy."
The stars, studied using the European Southern Observatory's VISTA telescope, are far beyond the edges of the Milky Way's disk. Researchers used the star clusters as Cepheid variables, or measurements for astronomical distances.
Their discovery "shows that our method of finding the location of dark-matter dominated dwarf galaxies works," Chakrabarti says. "It also shows that Newton's theory of gravity can be used out to the farthest reaches of a galaxy."
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