00:00Scientists have found an invisible star at the Milky Way center, a star that helped our
00:05galaxy be born.
00:0726,000 light-years away, in the galactic center, a massive, invisible object started spreading
00:14everywhere, and you don't even know that you're breathing it right now.
00:19It all started in the 70s, when an astronomer named Vera Rubin was studying the Andromeda
00:24Galaxy.
00:26He decided to check whether stars move in a predictable way.
00:31Now let's say you're spinning a ball on a string around yourself.
00:34The closer the ball is to you, the faster it moves in a tight circle.
00:38But if you let the string out longer, the ball moves more slowly in a bigger loop.
00:43That's how gravity works.
00:46And the same goes for planets.
00:47The closer ones, like Mercury, zoom around quickly, completing their orbits in months.
00:53The far ones, like Neptune and Saturn, take their time – decades – to make one rotation.
00:59The stars themselves should orbit the centers of their galaxies the same way.
01:03The closer ones move fast, the farther ones are slower, right?
01:08But when Vera measured the speeds, she saw something impossible – they weren't slowing
01:13down.
01:14The faraway stars were moving just as fast as the ones near the center.
01:18By all logic, the galaxies should've torn themselves apart.
01:22But they didn't.
01:24And that meant something was holding them together.
01:27Something undetectable – some massive, invisible object in the galactic center warping reality
01:33without ever revealing itself.
01:36So she checked over and over with different galaxies.
01:40This wasn't a fluke – it was happening everywhere.
01:43Rubin had accidentally uncovered proof that galaxies were drowning in something far heavier
01:48than all the stars, planets, and gas in our entire universe combined.
01:54It was holding us with ghostly hands.
01:59Astronomers called it dark matter because it doesn't glow, doesn't reflect light,
02:04doesn't seem to interact with anything at all – it's just there.
02:09But all the calculations show us that it exists.
02:12And not merely exists, but makes up 85% of all the mass in the universe.
02:18We know that it's sculpted galaxies.
02:20Without it, the world as we know it wouldn't exist.
02:23And yet, just like with an invisible star scientists found at the Milky Way's center,
02:28the only way to detect it was through gravity.
02:32So how do you find something that refuses to be found?
02:36Recently, scientists discovered there might be an invisible star at the Milky Way's
02:40center.
02:41And this fascinating discovery might finally help us understand what dark matter looks
02:46like.
02:47They began looking for dark matter's fingerprints – any signs of its presence anywhere.
02:52They studied how galaxies moved and smashed particles together in giant machines, hoping
02:57to create tiny bits of dark matter in the lab.
03:01This didn't really lead to anything.
03:03They didn't even know what to look for – is dark matter even made of particles?
03:08There was a theory that suggested that it's made of ghostly particles that barely touch
03:13anything.
03:14Or even weirder ones that might flicker in and out of existence in the blink of an eye.
03:19There was a problem, though.
03:21If dark matter really worked like that, then the centers of galaxies should be packed tight
03:26– tons of matter would be crammed into a tiny space.
03:30But in our universe, galactic cores seem strangely soft, spread out, almost gentle.
03:38A new theory emerged, and it was wild.
03:41What if the dark matter at the heart of galaxies isn't made of heavy particles at all?
03:46What if it's made of something so delicate that it behaves more like a strand of hair?
03:52These hairs could be made of something incredibly light – lighter than anything we've ever
03:56seen – and billions of times smaller than a neutrino, which is already the lightest
04:01known particle.
04:02They called this idea fuzzy dark matter.
04:06And it might change everything we thought we knew about the universe.
04:10A team of astrophysicists wanted to test this idea.
04:13So they ran a simulation, creating a simple model of a galaxy with two main ingredients
04:18– a whole lot of fuzzy dark matter and a little bit of gas – the same kind of gas
04:23that forms the stars we can see.
04:26They pressed start and just let the system evolve by itself, watching how the two would
04:31interact.
04:32At first, everything was pure chaos.
04:35But then, the fuzzy dark matter started to gather.
04:38It pulled itself together, forming a massive, invisible object near a galactic center.
04:43The gas followed, spreading throughout this ghostly mass, mixing with it, and glowing
04:49faintly.
04:50And then, it suddenly formed something incredible – dark stars.
04:54Not typical stars like our Sun, blazing with heat and light.
04:59Instead, it's enormous, massive, invisible objects – a hybrid of two different kinds
05:04of matter.
05:05We've never, never seen anything like this before.
05:09An object that would stretch across thousands of light-years, and yet, they'd be almost
05:13weightless.
05:14More like cosmic puffy clouds than anything else.
05:19Scientists called them Fermion-Boson stars.
05:22Finally, this dark matter thing is starting to make sense.
05:25The core of this strange, invisible star would have just the right density – not too dense,
05:31not too loose.
05:32And it looked exactly like what astronomers actually see in real galaxies.
05:37If it's confirmed, then it would finally explain how dark matter behaves and works.
05:42And if they're right, then every galaxy in the universe could be tied to one of those
05:47vast unseen giants.
05:49The Milky Way hidden star might be one of them, shaping our galaxy in ways we never
05:55realized.
05:56What's wild is that this stuff wouldn't behave like normal matter.
06:01It wouldn't form anything solid.
06:03Instead, it would be more like a complex, ever-moving web of filaments or hairs.
06:09This also means that Earth might be completely surrounded by it.
06:13Dark matter still follows the rules of gravity.
06:16As it moves past planets and stars, gravity pulls it into focused streams, so it's both
06:22hugging and passing through our planet, wobbling consistently.
06:26If we could see them, they might look like glowing, invisible threads everywhere.
06:31And they'd pierce right through the planet, stretching far into space.
06:35But this is only the beginning.
06:38Now scientists need to refine their models, make them even more detailed, and compare
06:42their predictions to real galaxies.
06:45But this dark star discovery in the galaxy's center isn't our only clue.
06:50Luckily, the universe has given us a way to look for that fingerprint – gravitational
06:55lensing.
06:57When light from a faraway galaxy travels toward us, it sometimes passes by another massive
07:03galaxy on the way, or other massive objects with crazy gravity.
07:07Instead of continuing in a straight stream, light actually gets bent around the massive
07:12object because of that gravity.
07:14And when it finally reaches us, it creates a distorted and magnified version of the original
07:20galaxy.
07:21Basically, it's like looking through a piece of curved glass.
07:24If dark matter is fuzzy, then it should leave a strange pattern on these distorted images.
07:30Things should be a bit wavy and unclear.
07:34Scientists needed the perfect object to study this.
07:37And they found one.
07:39A faraway galaxy whose light was bent by gravity, creating a strange stretched-out image.
07:45They used super-powerful radio telescopes, connected them all over the world, and turned
07:50them into one giant telescope as big as the Earth itself.
07:54With this, they could zoom in so much that they could see details of that galaxy as tiny
08:00as a grain of sand on the Moon.
08:03Then they ran a huge experiment.
08:05They created their own fake versions of this picture – simulations with various sizes
08:10of fuzzy dark matter particles.
08:12And at a certain point, they found the perfect match.
08:17This helped us calculate the exact mass of dark matter particles before we even detected
08:22them.
08:23And the clues are leading us right to our own galaxy.
08:26It seems like densest parts of these hairs – the roots – might be super close in
08:31the cosmic scale – just tens of thousands of miles from Earth.
08:35That's close enough for a space probe to reach.
08:38Now that scientists have found this invisible star at the Milky Way center, we just need
08:43to study it up close.
08:45Send a mission to one of these roots.
08:47And then, we might finally crack the greatest space mystery of all.
08:51That's it for today, so hey, if you pacified your curiosity, then give the video a like
08:59and share it with your friends.
09:00Or if you want more, just click on these videos and stay on the Bright Side!
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