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The Milky Way and other similar galaxies look like spiral drawn in a thick 2D disk.

The dark matter halo looks like an invisible 3D ball around the thick 2D disk.

Something like https://www.google.com/search?q=dark+matter+halo&tbm=isch




I thought that the main mechanism that produces the 2D disk of matter in galaxies was gravity, and that dark matter is equally affected by gravity as normal matter? What is the prevailing theory as to why dark matter accretion around galaxies is different from normal matter?

(edit: to answer my own question, the rabbit hole starts here: https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/485214/ -- basically, accretion happens because light matter can radiate and shed its (kinetic) energy that way. Dark matter does not radiate so it remains in a higher-energy state)




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