Check Out These Spellbinding Images From the Dark Energy Camera | Page 12 of 16

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An Irregular Dwarf Galaxy

The speckled irregular dwarf galaxy, as seen by the Dark Energy Camera. — The speckled irregular dwarf galaxy, as seen by the Dark Energy Camera. Image: DES/DOE/Fermilab/NCSA and CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA; Acknowledgments: Image processing: DES, Jen Miller (Gemini Observatory/NSF’s NOIRLab), Travis Rector (University of Alaska Anchorage), Mahdi Zamani and Davide de Martin

Dwarf galaxies like this one (IC 1613) are useful for measuring the potential size of dark matter particles. (Physicists try to hone in on dark matter candidates based on their potential masses.) IC 1613 is about 2.4 million light-years away and is constituted by about 100 million stars, according to a Fermilab release.

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