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.
Read more about this topic: Dark Matter Halo
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)
“Go, smiling souls, your new-built cages break,
In heaven you’ll learn to sing, ere here to speak,
Nor let the milky fonts that bathe your thirst
Be your delay;
The place that calls you hence is, at the worst,
Milk all the way.”
—Richard Crashaw (1613?–1649)
“If any personal description of me is thought desirable, it may be said, I am, in height, six feet, four inches, nearly; lean in flesh, weighing, on an average, one hundred and eighty pounds; dark complexion, with course black hair, and grey eyes—no other marks or brands recollected.”
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865)
“Were that enough, bone, blood, and sinew,
The twisted brain, the fair-formed loin,
Groping for matter under the dog’s plate,
Man should be cured of distemper.
For all there is to give I offer:
Crumbs, barn, and halter.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)
“Most books belong to the house and street only, and in the fields their leaves feel very thin. They are bare and obvious, and have no halo nor haze about them. Nature lies far and fair behind them all. But this, as it proceeds from, so it addresses, what is deepest and most abiding in man. It belongs to the noontide of the day, the midsummer of the year, and after the snows have melted, and the waters evaporated in the spring, still its truth speaks freshly to our experience.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)