What is the size of the Galaxy?

ScienceDaily (June 10, 2009) — Dark matter is an enigmatic energy that makes up most of the mass in the Universe, whose nature has not yet been identified. Researchers have succeeded in estimating the percentage of dark matter in the Universe and describing the processes related to the very existence of this matter. But, until now, no one has established the distribution and behavior of the dark matter in a galaxy.

Now, astronomers in the Theoretical Physics and Cosmos Department of the University of Granada, led by Eduardo Battaner, in collaboration with researchers in the Applied Mathematics Department, have made great progress: establishing the distribution and behaviour of the dark matter in a galaxy.

New mathematical calculations on the dark matter describe the density profiles which define how the dark matter changes in a galaxy. This had not been specified in the astronomy field yet. Until now, the behaviour of the dark matter had been estimated through simulations, but the new mathematical description approach based on equations and functions which describe each characteristic of the dark matter make this result much more reliable.

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