The Milky Way is lighter than previously thought

Our Milky Way weighs only about 1/4 to one third of the previously estimated mass, according to the latest analysis of the weight of dark matter in our galaxy.

Photo: tientri.net

The long-held hypothesis holds that the first galaxies were born with matter often forming a mass around dark matter, thought to account for about 80% of the entire universe's matter.

Alis Deason of the University of California in Santa Cruz and colleagues compared models on two supercomputers that mixed different amounts of ordinary and dark matter to create the Milky Way.

Accordingly, a model created the hypothetical Milky Way with a giant halo equivalent to about 800 billion suns. The second model has a mass of 2 trillion sun, according to New Scientist.

The comparison results show that the small model is better suited to the current observations of astronomers because scientists have so far identified only 26 satellite galaxies around the Milky Way, instead of Thousands if in size as originally anticipated.