The flat part of the Milky Way Galaxy’s rotation curve tells us that stars in the outskirts of the galaxy?
A)orbit the galactic center just as fast as stars closer to the center.
B)rotate rapidly on their axes.
C)travel in straight, flat lines rather than elliptical orbits.
if you can, please explain
More Questions From This User See All
Answers & Comments
Verified answer
The anwer is (a). The rotation curve is simply a graph of orbital velocity vs distance from the galactic center. Now, if we were to draw a rotation curve based solely on the amount of visible matter we see, then orbital velocity should decrease the further we get from the center of the galaxy. But, because the curve flattens out, this shows us that there is much more mass within the halo of the Milky Way then we can see. Hence, we can infer the amount of dark matter present in the Milky Way.
a.