Keplerian rotation curve
A plot of rotation speed versus distance from the center of an astronomical
system that obey's Kepler's laws. If most of the mass of the system is concentrated
at the center, as in the solar system, then the speed of any orbiting body,
such as a planet, is inversely proportional to the square root of its distance
from the center. The fact that spiral galaxies
don't have a rotation curve like this indicates that their overall mass
distribution is different than the distribution of matter that can be seen.
This is an important piece of evidence for the existence of large amounts
of dark matter in the Universe.
|The predicted rotation curve for a spiral galaxy
in which the mass distribution is the same as that observed for the
visible mass alone (A) shown together with a typical measured rotation
curve (B). The discrepancy points to the presence of large amounts
of dark matter in an massive, invisible halo outside the bright spiral.