The above image features a new type of astronomical object which astronomers have nicknamed Cloud-9 and is actually a starless, gas-rich, dark matter cloud- a remnant of early galaxy formation. This phenomenon has been named a Reionization-Limited H I Cloud or “RELHIC” (H I standing for neutral hydrogen).
Most of the universe’s mass is thought to be dark matter, but it is difficult to detect it because of its lack of light emission. Cloud-9 gives astronomers a rare look at a cloud dominated by dark matter. The diffuse magenta is radio data collected from the ground-based Very Large Array (VLA). The circle is the peak of the radio emission and where the search for stars was focused. The objects that appear within its boundaries are background galaxies.
Before Hubble, ground based telescopes only allowed scientists to think that this was a faint dwarf galaxy whose stars could not be seen. However, thanks to Hubble, it can be seen for what it really is.
It is thought that RELHICs are dark matter clouds that couldn’t accumulate enough gas from stars. The cloud may eventually form a galaxy in the future if it grows more massive, however how that would occur is under speculation.
It is located on the outskirts of a nearby spiral galaxy (M94) and is about 14 million lights years from Earth.
Image Credit & Copyright: NASA, ESA, VLA, Gagandeep Anand (STScl), Alejandro Benitez-Llambay (University of Milano-Bicocca); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScl)
