Milky Way Dark Matter Halo
The visible disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is embedded in a much larger, roughly spherical halo of dark matter. The dark matter density drops off with distance from the galactic center. It is now believed that about 95% of the Galaxy is composed of dark matter, a type of matter that does not seem to interact with the rest of the Galaxy's matter and energy in any way except through gravity. The luminous matter makes up approximately 9 x 1010 solar masses. The dark matter halo is likely to include around 6 x 1011 to 3 x 1012 solar masses of dark matter.
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Famous quotes containing the words milky way, milky, dark, matter and/or halo:
“The Milky Way perhaps
Was woman’s way of life.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“Nothing has shown more fully the prodigious ignorance of human ideas and their littleness, than the discovery of [Sir William] Herschell, that what used to be called the Milky Way is a portion of perhaps an infinite multitude of worlds!”
—Horace Walpole (1717–1797)
“The eye doesn’t see any shapes, it sees only what is differentiated through light and dark or through colors.”
—Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)
“What does it matter if, by chance, a little vile blood be spilled?”
—Jean Racine (1639–1699)
“There is a touch of divinity even in brutes, and a special halo about a horse, that should forever exempt him from indignities.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)