Andromeda’s asymmetric satellite system as a challenge to cold dark matter cosmology

IF 12.9 1区物理与天体物理 Q1 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

Nature Astronomy Pub Date : 2025-04-11 DOI:10.1038/s41550-025-02480-3

Kosuke Jamie Kanehisa, Marcel S. Pawlowski, Noam Libeskind

引用次数: 0

Abstract

The Andromeda galaxy is surrounded by a strikingly asymmetrical distribution of satellite dwarf galaxies aligned towards the Milky Way. The standard model of cosmology predicts that most satellite galaxy systems are near-isotropic, and dwarf associations observed in the local Universe are only weakly asymmetric. Here we characterize the Andromeda system’s asymmetry and test its agreement with expectations from concordance cosmology. All but one of Andromeda’s 37 satellite galaxies are contained within 107° of our Galaxy. In standard cosmological simulations, less than 0.3% (0.5% when accounting for possible observational incompleteness) of Andromeda-like systems show a comparably significant asymmetry. None are as collectively lopsided as the observed satellite configuration. In conjunction with its satellite plane, our results paint the Andromeda system as an extreme outlier in the prevailing cosmological paradigm, further challenging our understanding of structure formation at small scales.

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来源期刊

Nature Astronomy Physics and Astronomy-Astronomy and Astrophysics

CiteScore

19.50

自引率

2.80%

发文量

252

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