Astronomers have discovered an invisible isolated dark galaxy that emits no light, classified as FAST J0139+4328, located 94 million light-years from Earth. Data from the 500-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope (FAST) was combined with the Pan-STARRS1 images to detect the HI cloud, which appears to be a typical disk galaxy.
The most important tool used in this discovery of the young galaxy was gravitational lensing, which means that space objects closer to us that have a great mass distort light coming from more distant sources that are perfectly aligned with them. However, interstellar obstructed the view even with gravitational lensing, so that is why the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) had to be used. FAST J0139+4328 was determined to be a young, active galaxy forming stars at 1,000 times our own Milky Way.
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These findings provide observational evidence that FAST J0139+4328 is an isolated dark dwarf galaxy with a redshift of z=0.0083. This is the first time that an isolated dark galaxy has been detected in the nearby universe,” said the research team.
