Bibcode
Minchin, R.; Disney, M. J.; Davies, J. I.; Marble, A. R.; Impey, C. D.; Boyce, P. J.; Garcia, D. A.; Grossi, M.; Jordan, C. A.; Lang, R. H.; Roberts, S.; Sabatini, S.; van Driel, W.
Bibliographical reference
ISLAND UNIVERSES, Astrophysics and Space Science Proceedings. ISBN 978-1-4020-5572-0. Springer, 2007, p. 101
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2007
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Description
Dark Matter supposedly dominates the extragalactic Universe (Peebles
1993; Peacock 1998; Moore et al. 1999; D’Onghi & Lake 2004),
yet no dark structure of galactic proportions has ever been convincingly
identified. Earlier (Minchin et al. 2005) we suggested that VIRGOHI 21,
a 21-cm source we found in the Virgo Cluster at Jodrell Bank using
single-dish observations (Davies et al. 2004), was probably such a dark
galaxy because of its broad line-width (~200 km s-1)
unaccompanied by any visible gravitational source to account for it. We
have now imaged VIRGOHI 21 in the neutral-hydrogen line, and have found
what appears to be a dark, edge-on, spinning disc with the mass and
diameter of a typical spiral galaxy. Moreover the disc has
unquestionably interacted with NGC 4254, a luminous spiral with an odd
one-armed morphology, but lacking the massive interactor normally linked
with such a feature. Published numerical models (Vollmer et al. 2005) of
NGC 4254 call for a close interaction ~108 years ago with a perturber of
~1011 solar masses. This we take as further, independent evidence for
the massive nature of VIRGOHI 21.