A ghostly object is warping the galaxy that contains Earth

The Milky Way's giant disk of light is warped and twisted in an inexplicable way. The culprit may be the most common, yet spooky, mysterious thing in the universe.

According to Science Alert, a research team led by Dr. Jiwon Jesse Han from the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) has investigated the long-standing mystery of something giant, invisible that seems to be causing the Milky Way galaxy disk containing Earth to warp and twist.

They point to 'dark matter ,' an invisible substance that makes up most of the mass of the universe, according to previous estimates. 

An invisible halo of dark matter is enveloping the Milky Way, distorting it and causing the Galactic disc to warp as well - (Image: CfA).

A distorted halo of dark matter that envelops and permeates our galaxy creates that strange warping.

According to Dr Han, this dark halo is tilted in the same direction as the stellar halo, as revealed by data on the galaxy's own deviant stellar halo. Although invisible, it still diffuses the gas around the stars, thus leaving a trace.

The dark, ghostly mass was so large that it almost encompassed the Milky Way.

The team built a model based on this scenario, with the dark halo tilted by about 25 degrees, and calculated the orbits of stars and gas in the galaxy over 5 billion years.

The model shows a perfect match with observations of the Milky Way by the Gaia satellite, a sky-mapping warrior of the European Space Agency (ESA) that also gives humanity a chance to know the shape of the galaxy we live in.

However, the way it hugs the galaxy is not only not worrisome, but could also open new doors for astronomers to learn about the formation history of the Milky Way.