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Advertisement Advertisement Nature * View all journals * Search * My Account Login * Explore content * About the journal * Publish with us Subscribe * Sign up for alerts * RSS feed 1. nature 2. news & views 3. article * NEWS AND VIEWS * 18 May 2022 Giant collision created galaxies devoid of dark matter Two galaxies that are curiously lacking in dark matter -- the most abundant matter in the Universe -- might have formed when a collision between dwarf galaxies separated ordinary matter from its dark counterpart. * Eun-jin Shin ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-4639-5285 ^0 & * Ji-hoon Kim ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0003-4464-1160 ^1 1. Eun-jin Shin 1. Eun-jin Shin is in the Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea. View author publications You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar 2. Ji-hoon Kim 1. Ji-hoon Kim is in the Center for Theoretical Physics, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Seoul National University, Seoul 08826, South Korea. View author publications You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar * Twitter * Facebook * Email Access through your institution Buy or subscribe When we clap our hands together, the electrons in each hand repel those in the other electromagnetically, preventing our hands from moving through each other. But what would happen if our hands contained some dark matter, which is thought to interact mainly gravitationally, but not electromagnetically? The clap would separate each hand into ordinary matter, which would stop with the collision, and dark matter, which would pass through the other hand. Fortunately for us, our bodies comprise only ordinary matter, but such events can occur on a cosmic scale when two galaxies collide. Writing in Nature, van Dokkum et al.^1 propose that such a collision might have created two ultra-diffuse (low-luminosity) galaxies that have no dark matter. Access options Access through your institution Access through your institution Change institution Buy or subscribe Subscribe to Nature+ Get immediate online access to the entire Nature family of 50+ journals $29.99 monthly Subscribe Subscribe to Journal Get full journal access for 1 year $199.00 only $3.90 per issue Subscribe All prices are NET prices. VAT will be added later in the checkout. Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout. Buy article Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube. $32.00 Buy All prices are NET prices. Additional access options: * Log in * Learn about institutional subscriptions Nature 605, 427-428 (2022) doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01298-7 References 1. van Dokkum, P. et al. Nature 605, 435-439 (2022). Article Google Scholar 2. van Dokkum, P. et al. Nature 555, 629-632 (2018). PubMed Article Google Scholar 3. van Dokkum, P. et al. Astrophys. J. 874, L5 (2019). Article Google Scholar 4. Bradac, M. et al. Astrophys. J. 652, 937-947 (2006). Article Google Scholar 5. Silk, J. Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 488, L24-L28 (2019). Article Google Scholar 6. Shin, E. et al. Astrophys. J. 899, 25 (2020). Article Google Scholar 7. Lee, J., Shin, E. & Kim, J. Astrophys. J. 917, L15 (2021). Article Google Scholar 8. Roman, J., Castilla, A. & Pascual-Granado, J. Astron. Astrophys. 656, A44 (2021). Article Google Scholar Download references Competing Interests The authors declare no competing interests. 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