A GALAXY in which stellar dwarfs seem to have conquered the giants has
left astronomers puzzled about how large stars form.
James Graham of the University of California at Berkeley and his colleagues
used the Hubble Space Telescope to look at a galaxy that lies 40 million light
years away in the constellation Draco. The galaxy has a similar shape to our
own, with a dim halo surrounding a bright disc.
The team expected to observe hundreds of individual, big stars in the halo.
But they were in for a surprise. 鈥淲e saw only one star,鈥� Graham announced at
this week鈥檚 meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin. He
speculates that something in the halo鈥攑ossibly dark matter鈥攎ight
somehow be stopping massive stars forming. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 astronomical heresy,鈥� he
adds.
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