The neighborhood map of the Milky Way is changing: Giant telescope found two hiding companions of our galaxy

Vera C. Rubin Observatory, built in the Chilean Andes and equipped with the world's largest digital camera, made groundbreaking discoveries in the world of astronomy as soon as it took office. Analyzing the first test data collected by the observatory, an international team of astronomers brought to light two new neighboring structures orbiting the Milky Way Galaxy, but which had not been detected until now due to cosmic dust and extreme dimness.

Research, details of which are shared in Research Notes of the AAS and The Astrophysical Journal Letters, confirm the existence of hundreds of hidden dwarf galaxies waiting to be discovered around our galaxy.

DETECTED 355 THOUSAND LIGHT YEARS AWAY FROM EARTH

The first of the celestial objects detected in the study conducted jointly by Yale University, the University of Chicago and international research institutions was the extremely faint "Aquarius IV" dwarf galaxy, located approximately 355 thousand light-years away from the Earth. The second structure discovered, "Rubin-GC1", was recorded as a dense star cluster hidden behind cosmic dust clouds on the opposite side of the Milky Way.

There are approximately 65 satellite galaxies known to exist around the Milky Way to date. However, scientists state that thanks to the high resolution provided by the new telescope, hundreds of new undetectable satellites will be revealed in the huge "halo" region surrounding our galaxy.

TIME-LAPSE RECORDING OF SPACE IS KEPT WITH A GIANT 3.2 GIGAPIXEL CAMERA

The most striking aspect of the discovery is that these two new structures were found by examining only a small 7 percent of the night sky at the beginning of the observatory's 13-year Space and Time Legacy Survey (LSST) project. The 8.4-meter Simonyi Survey Telescope and a huge digital camera with a resolution of 3.2 gigapixels continuously photograph the Southern Hemisphere sky, creating the most detailed moving map of the universe.

Yale University astronomer William Cerny, one of the lead authors of the study, said, "If we can find such faint systems with just preview data, we will have a completely new picture of the Milky Way's past when the 13-year scan is completed."

THE SECRET OF DARK MATTER WILL BE SOLVED IN THESE dim galaxies

Newly discovered ultra-faint galaxies offer a unique laboratory for the study of "dark matter", one of the greatest puzzles of modern physics. Dark matter, which does not emit or reflect light but forms the framework of the universe through its gravitational effects, constitutes the overwhelming majority of the total mass of these small dwarf galaxies.

By studying the motions and gravitational behavior of faint moons such as Aquarius IV, astronomers aim to both analyze the true structure of dark matter and map how the Milky Way has grown by incorporating other smaller systems over billions of years.