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Article updated: 1/12/2013 7:13 PM

Has the Milky Way lost weight?

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An artist's depiction shows a discovery by NASA's Kepler mission of a world where two suns set over the horizon instead of just one. The planet, called Kepler-16b, is the most "Tatooine-like" planet yet found in our galaxy and is depicted here with its two stars. Tatooine is the name of Luke Skywalker's home world in the science fiction movie Star Wars.

Associated Press

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A lower total mass for our home galaxy would have several implications, in particular for the Milky Way’s dark matter content and distribution. Current theories predict that galaxies like ours should be surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of smaller satellite galaxies-many more than astronomers have found.