CHICAGO, June 9 (UPI) -- U.S. astrophysicists said they have resolved an embarrassing contradiction between a theory of how galaxies form and what astronomers have observed.
Astrophysicists at the University of Chicago said the current understanding of how galaxies formed in the aftermath of the Big Bang is the cold dark matter theory. In this theory, small galaxies collided and merged, inducing bursts of star formation that created the different types of massive and bright galaxies that astronomers see in the sky today.
Dark matter takes its name from the idea that 85 percent of the total mass of the universe is made of unknown matter that is invisible to telescopes, but whose gravitational effects can be measured on luminous galaxies.
The Chicago team created new supercomputer simulations that found some dwarf galaxies that appear small today must have been more massive in the past so they could collect enough gas gravitationally to form stars and become galaxies.
