LIVE SCIENCE - Researchers may have solved the mystery of why a distant galaxy surrounded by an eerily perfect "Einstein ring" is denser than it should be: The hefty galaxy, which was discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), is being compressed by a massive halo of dark matter.
In a new study, published April 11 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, a new group of researchers has proposed an explanation for JWST-ER1g's unusual density: A halo of dark matter surrounding the galaxy is being compressed into an ever-tighter space as regular matter collapses into it, resulting in a higher density of the mysterious substance.
"Our numerical studies show that this mechanism can explain the high dark matter density of JWST-ER1g," study lead author Demao Kong, a researcher in the physics and astronomy department at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), said in a statement.