Incredible: secrets of galaxy formation may be revealed by a new discovery

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, scientists have discovered a unique, previously unknown object in space: a cloud of gas which, despite having all the necessary conditions, never became a galaxy. The formation, named Cloud-9, could help researchers understand how galaxies are born and shed new light on how the universe took shape in its earliest stages.

Since the dawn of humanity, people have tried to understand how the universe came into existence. With the help of modern telescopes, researchers can now observe objects originating from the earliest periods of the cosmos. These discoveries may help uncover the secrets of galaxy formation and explain how the cosmic environment we live in today developed. However, there are also celestial bodies which, although they carry crucial information, remain mysterious in origin.

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The uniqueness of Cloud-9

Hubble’s latest discovery, the cloud known as Cloud-9, has proven to be particularly fascinating. This Reionization-Limited H I Cloud (RELHIC) is a dark-matter-dominated object whose mass should have been sufficient to form a galaxy – yet not a single star has formed within it. According to a study, Cloud-9 could open a crucial window into understanding galaxy formation, while Einstein’s theory of relativity may also gain new relevance in the context of dark matter research.

Galaxy formation is not a simple process. The birth of stars depends on the presence of sufficient hydrogen and other gases, while gravity and the distribution of dark matter also play critical roles. In the case of Cloud-9 – a neutral hydrogen cloud stretching about 4,900 light-years across – the mass of the gas alone is roughly equivalent to one million Suns. However, due to the presence of dark matter and gravitational effects, its total mass could be comparable to five billion Suns.