Scientists have just made an incredible discovery—a possible dark matter star right in our own galaxy! Unlike normal stars, this one might be powered by mysterious dark matter instead of nuclear fusion. If true, it could change everything we know about space and how the universe works. Dark matter is something we can’t see, but it makes up most of the universe, and this star might finally help us understand it. Astronomers are still studying it, but this could be one of the biggest space discoveries ever. Stay tuned, because the universe just got a lot more mysterious! Credit:
CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ :
Vera Rubin using Kitt Peak: By KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vera_Rubin_using_Kitt_Peak_National_Observatory's_36-inch_telescope.jpg
Vera Rubin measuring spectra: By NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vera_Rubin_measuring_spectra.tif
First Results from the KiDS Survey: By Kilo-Degree Survey Collaboration/A. Tudorica & C. Heymans/ESO, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Results_from_the_KiDS_Survey_(montage).jpg
Collage of six cluster collisions: By ESA/Hubble, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Collage_of_six_cluster_collisions_with_dark_matter_maps.jpg#/media/File:Collage_of_six_cluster_collisions_with_dark_matter_maps.jpg
DESDM map 2021: By Dark Energy Survey, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ , https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DESDMmap2021.png
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
CC BY 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ :
Vera Rubin using Kitt Peak: By KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vera_Rubin_using_Kitt_Peak_National_Observatory's_36-inch_telescope.jpg
Vera Rubin measuring spectra: By NOIRLab/NSF/AURA, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Vera_Rubin_measuring_spectra.tif
First Results from the KiDS Survey: By Kilo-Degree Survey Collaboration/A. Tudorica & C. Heymans/ESO, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:First_Results_from_the_KiDS_Survey_(montage).jpg
Collage of six cluster collisions: By ESA/Hubble, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Collage_of_six_cluster_collisions_with_dark_matter_maps.jpg#/media/File:Collage_of_six_cluster_collisions_with_dark_matter_maps.jpg
DESDM map 2021: By Dark Energy Survey, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ , https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:DESDMmap2021.png
North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics / YouYube
CERN / YouYube
CERN / YouYube
Animation is created by Bright Side.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Music from TheSoul Sound: https://thesoul-sound.com/
Check our Bright Side podcast on Spotify and leave a positive review! https://open.spotify.com/show/0hUkPxD34jRLrMrJux4VxV
Subscribe to Bright Side: https://goo.gl/rQTJZz
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Stock materials (photos, footages and other):
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https://www.shutterstock.com
https://www.eastnews.ru
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For more videos and articles visit:
http://www.brightside.me
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This video is made for entertainment purposes. We do not make any warranties about the completeness, safety and reliability. Any action you take upon the information in this video is strictly at your own risk, and we will not be liable for any damages or losses. It is the viewer's responsibility to use judgement, care and precaution if you plan to replicate.
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FunTranscript
00:00Scientists have found an invisible star at the Milky Way center, a star that helped our
00:05galaxy be born.
00:0726,000 light-years away, in the galactic center, a massive, invisible object started spreading
00:14everywhere, and you don't even know that you're breathing it right now.
00:19It all started in the 70s, when an astronomer named Vera Rubin was studying the Andromeda
00:24Galaxy.
00:26He decided to check whether stars move in a predictable way.
00:31Now let's say you're spinning a ball on a string around yourself.
00:34The closer the ball is to you, the faster it moves in a tight circle.
00:38But if you let the string out longer, the ball moves more slowly in a bigger loop.
00:43That's how gravity works.
00:46And the same goes for planets.
00:47The closer ones, like Mercury, zoom around quickly, completing their orbits in months.
00:53The far ones, like Neptune and Saturn, take their time – decades – to make one rotation.
00:59The stars themselves should orbit the centers of their galaxies the same way.
01:03The closer ones move fast, the farther ones are slower, right?
01:08But when Vera measured the speeds, she saw something impossible – they weren't slowing
01:13down.
01:14The faraway stars were moving just as fast as the ones near the center.
01:18By all logic, the galaxies should've torn themselves apart.
01:22But they didn't.
01:24And that meant something was holding them together.
01:27Something undetectable – some massive, invisible object in the galactic center warping reality
01:33without ever revealing itself.
01:36So she checked over and over with different galaxies.
01:40This wasn't a fluke – it was happening everywhere.
01:43Rubin had accidentally uncovered proof that galaxies were drowning in something far heavier
01:48than all the stars, planets, and gas in our entire universe combined.
01:54It was holding us with ghostly hands.
01:59Astronomers called it dark matter because it doesn't glow, doesn't reflect light,
02:04doesn't seem to interact with anything at all – it's just there.
02:09But all the calculations show us that it exists.
02:12And not merely exists, but makes up 85% of all the mass in the universe.
02:18We know that it's sculpted galaxies.
02:20Without it, the world as we know it wouldn't exist.
02:23And yet, just like with an invisible star scientists found at the Milky Way's center,
02:28the only way to detect it was through gravity.
02:32So how do you find something that refuses to be found?
02:36Recently, scientists discovered there might be an invisible star at the Milky Way's
02:40center.
02:41And this fascinating discovery might finally help us understand what dark matter looks
02:46like.
02:47They began looking for dark matter's fingerprints – any signs of its presence anywhere.
02:52They studied how galaxies moved and smashed particles together in giant machines, hoping
02:57to create tiny bits of dark matter in the lab.
03:01This didn't really lead to anything.
03:03They didn't even know what to look for – is dark matter even made of particles?
03:08There was a theory that suggested that it's made of ghostly particles that barely touch
03:13anything.
03:14Or even weirder ones that might flicker in and out of existence in the blink of an eye.
03:19There was a problem, though.
03:21If dark matter really worked like that, then the centers of galaxies should be packed tight
03:26– tons of matter would be crammed into a tiny space.
03:30But in our universe, galactic cores seem strangely soft, spread out, almost gentle.
03:38A new theory emerged, and it was wild.
03:41What if the dark matter at the heart of galaxies isn't made of heavy particles at all?
03:46What if it's made of something so delicate that it behaves more like a strand of hair?
03:52These hairs could be made of something incredibly light – lighter than anything we've ever
03:56seen – and billions of times smaller than a neutrino, which is already the lightest
04:01known particle.
04:02They called this idea fuzzy dark matter.
04:06And it might change everything we thought we knew about the universe.
04:10A team of astrophysicists wanted to test this idea.
04:13So they ran a simulation, creating a simple model of a galaxy with two main ingredients
04:18– a whole lot of fuzzy dark matter and a little bit of gas – the same kind of gas
04:23that forms the stars we can see.
04:26They pressed start and just let the system evolve by itself, watching how the two would
04:31interact.
04:32At first, everything was pure chaos.
04:35But then, the fuzzy dark matter started to gather.
04:38It pulled itself together, forming a massive, invisible object near a galactic center.
04:43The gas followed, spreading throughout this ghostly mass, mixing with it, and glowing
04:49faintly.
04:50And then, it suddenly formed something incredible – dark stars.
04:54Not typical stars like our Sun, blazing with heat and light.
04:59Instead, it's enormous, massive, invisible objects – a hybrid of two different kinds
05:04of matter.
05:05We've never, never seen anything like this before.
05:09An object that would stretch across thousands of light-years, and yet, they'd be almost
05:13weightless.
05:14More like cosmic puffy clouds than anything else.
05:19Scientists called them Fermion-Boson stars.
05:22Finally, this dark matter thing is starting to make sense.
05:25The core of this strange, invisible star would have just the right density – not too dense,
05:31not too loose.
05:32And it looked exactly like what astronomers actually see in real galaxies.
05:37If it's confirmed, then it would finally explain how dark matter behaves and works.
05:42And if they're right, then every galaxy in the universe could be tied to one of those
05:47vast unseen giants.
05:49The Milky Way hidden star might be one of them, shaping our galaxy in ways we never
05:55realized.
05:56What's wild is that this stuff wouldn't behave like normal matter.
06:01It wouldn't form anything solid.
06:03Instead, it would be more like a complex, ever-moving web of filaments or hairs.
06:09This also means that Earth might be completely surrounded by it.
06:13Dark matter still follows the rules of gravity.
06:16As it moves past planets and stars, gravity pulls it into focused streams, so it's both
06:22hugging and passing through our planet, wobbling consistently.
06:26If we could see them, they might look like glowing, invisible threads everywhere.
06:31And they'd pierce right through the planet, stretching far into space.
06:35But this is only the beginning.
06:38Now scientists need to refine their models, make them even more detailed, and compare
06:42their predictions to real galaxies.
06:45But this dark star discovery in the galaxy's center isn't our only clue.
06:50Luckily, the universe has given us a way to look for that fingerprint – gravitational
06:55lensing.
06:57When light from a faraway galaxy travels toward us, it sometimes passes by another massive
07:03galaxy on the way, or other massive objects with crazy gravity.
07:07Instead of continuing in a straight stream, light actually gets bent around the massive
07:12object because of that gravity.
07:14And when it finally reaches us, it creates a distorted and magnified version of the original
07:20galaxy.
07:21Basically, it's like looking through a piece of curved glass.
07:24If dark matter is fuzzy, then it should leave a strange pattern on these distorted images.
07:30Things should be a bit wavy and unclear.
07:34Scientists needed the perfect object to study this.
07:37And they found one.
07:39A faraway galaxy whose light was bent by gravity, creating a strange stretched-out image.
07:45They used super-powerful radio telescopes, connected them all over the world, and turned
07:50them into one giant telescope as big as the Earth itself.
07:54With this, they could zoom in so much that they could see details of that galaxy as tiny
08:00as a grain of sand on the Moon.
08:03Then they ran a huge experiment.
08:05They created their own fake versions of this picture – simulations with various sizes
08:10of fuzzy dark matter particles.
08:12And at a certain point, they found the perfect match.
08:17This helped us calculate the exact mass of dark matter particles before we even detected
08:22them.
08:23And the clues are leading us right to our own galaxy.
08:26It seems like densest parts of these hairs – the roots – might be super close in
08:31the cosmic scale – just tens of thousands of miles from Earth.
08:35That's close enough for a space probe to reach.
08:38Now that scientists have found this invisible star at the Milky Way center, we just need
08:43to study it up close.
08:45Send a mission to one of these roots.
08:47And then, we might finally crack the greatest space mystery of all.
08:51That's it for today, so hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like
08:59and share it with your friends.
09:00Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!