He suggested that there must exist some other matter to provide the needed additional gravitational effects. Science magazine, the AAAS American Assoc. It may help explain the current rotational behavior as well as the ancient history of our Galaxy. But, because it gives off too little light to detect directly, it has been hidden in space, giving few clues to its existence. The cosmological quest for dark matter has gone on for about a half century and now comes of age in a report published in the March 23 issue of Science .
Dark matter does indeed exist in the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy.
And this time, it's not too dark to see, the report says. These previously unseen stars account for at least three percent and possibly up to a third of the galaxy's dark matter. The discovery addresses ongoing debates on the early formation of stars in young galaxies. The process of star formation as we see it today produces stars according to rules such that low mass stars are formed in much greater numbers than high mass stars. In the early universe these rules may have been different and our new survey provides strong evidence that, in fact, those rules have changed over the course of time.