The Hubble Space Telescope has a picture of an ultra-diffuse galaxy. The image shows a smudge of light across the center of the image and it is located in the constellation of Hydra.
Hubble scientists write that ultra-diffuse galaxies such as GAMA 526784 have a number of quirks. Some of the ultra-diffuse galaxies had almost nothing but dark matter, while others had almost nothing but dark matter. This class of galaxies has an unusual abundance of bright clusters, something not seen in other types of galaxies.
This image was collected as part of a Hubble project to learn more about ultra-diffuse galaxies. The size of these galaxies is similar to the size of our own Milky Way, but they have less stars than ours. This has led to them being called the fluffiest galaxies.
It is difficult to say how they have survived, as it would be expected that they would have been torn apart. Researchers think that the galaxies with high levels of dark matter might be protected by the dark matter cushions.
How to explain the diffuse galaxies which have almost no dark matter? Researchers don't have a good answer to this question. There is only one possibility, that the two missing dark matter galaxies could have formed in the same group at the same time, and that there might be something odd about the environment they formed in.
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