W. M. Keck Observatory: Public Astronomy Talk

Learn about Dragonfly, the little telescope in New Mexico that has found an entirely new class of galaxies. The “ultra diffuse” galaxies that Dragonfly has discovered are as large as our own Milky Way but have 100-1000 times fewer stars. They are so diffuse that you can look right through them. They look unlike any other galaxies we knew about, and follow-up work with the W. M. Keck Observatory and the Hubble Space Telescope has revealed that what we can’t see of the galaxies is even stranger: their dark matter does not “play by the rules” but seems to be present in too large amounts for some and too little for others. One of the diffuse objects many not have any dark matter at all! The talk will discuss these developments, and also look forward to what we hope to learn in the future.