Researchers may have solved the mystery of why a distant galaxy surrounded by an eerily perfect"Einstein ring" is denser than it should be: The hefty galaxy, which was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope , is being compressed by a massive halo of dark matter.
JWST-ER1r is around 21 billion light-years from Earth, making it the most distant gravitationally lensed object ever discovered; after adjusting for the universe's expansion rate, researchers estimated that the galaxy was born about 10.3 billion years ago, or around 3.4 billion years after the Big Bang.At the time of this discovery, researchers noticed that the lensing object, JWST-ER1g, was unusually dense.
By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.But in a new study, published April 11 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a new group of researchers has proposed an explanation for JWST-ER1g's unusual density: A halo of dark matter surrounding the galaxy is being compressed into an ever-tighter space as regular matter collapses into it, resulting in a higher density of the mysterious substance.