section_path: Observation history/Modern research
section_name: Modern research
paragraph_text: Modern research
  
  In 1944, Hendrik van de Hulst predicted that microwave radiation with wavelength of 21 cm would be detectable from interstellar atomic hydrogen gas; and in 1951 it was observed. This radiation is not affected by dust absorption, and so its Doppler shift can be used to map the motion of the gas in this galaxy. These observations led to the hypothesis of a rotating bar structure in the center of this galaxy. With improved radio telescopes, hydrogen gas could also be traced in other galaxies.In the 1970s, Vera Rubin uncovered a discrepancy between observed galactic rotation speed and that predicted by the visible mass of stars and gas. Today, the galaxy rotation problem is thought to be explained by the presence of large quantities of unseen dark matter.
  
  Beginning in the 1990s, the Hubble Space Telescope yielded improved observations. Among other things, its data helped establish that the missing dark matter in this galaxy could not consist solely of inherently faint and small stars. The Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion (1.25 × 10) galaxies in the observable universe. Improved technology in detecting the spectra invisible to humans (radio telescopes, infrared cameras, and x-ray telescopes) allows detection of other galaxies that are not detected by Hubble. Particularly, surveys in the Zone of Avoidance (the region of sky blocked at visible-light wavelengths by the Milky Way) have revealed a number of new galaxies.
  
  A 2016 study published in The Astrophysical Journal, led by Christopher Conselice of the University of Nottingham, used 20 years of Hubble images to estimate that the observable universe contained at least two trillion (2 × 10) galaxies. However, later observations with the New Horizons space probe from outside the zodiacal light reduced this to roughly 200 billion (2 × 10).