A FAINT LUMINOUS HALO THAT MAY TRACE THE DARK-MATTER AROUND SPIRAL GALAXY NGC5907

被引:103
作者
SACKETT, PD
MORRISON, HL
HARDING, P
BOROSON, TA
机构
[1] NATL OPT ASTRON OBSERV,TUCSON,AZ 85726
[2] US GEMINI PROJECT OFF,TUCSON,AZ 85726
[3] UNIV ARIZONA,STEWARD OBSERV,TUCSON,AZ 85721
关键词
D O I
10.1038/370441a0
中图分类号
O [数理科学和化学]; P [天文学、地球科学]; Q [生物科学]; N [自然科学总论];
学科分类号
07 ; 0710 ; 09 ;
摘要
THE presence of unseen haloes of 'dark matter' has long been inferred from the high rotation speeds of gas and stars in the outer parts of spiral galaxies(1). The volume density of this dark matter decreases less quickly from the galactic centre than does that of the luminous mass (such as that in stars), meaning that the dark matter dominates the mass far from the centre(1,2). While searching for faint starlight away from the plane of the edge-on spiral galaxy NGC5907 (ref. 3), we have found that the galaxy is surrounded by a faint luminous halo. The intensity of light from this halo falls less steeply than any known luminous component of spiral galaxies, but is consistent with the distribution of dark mass inferred from the galaxy's rotation curve.
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页码:441 / 443
页数:3
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