This is freaky! Was it us? When we flung the stone that put the stars to flight?

Invisible dark matter is supposed to make up over 80 per cent of the universe's mass but a new survey of nearby stars and galaxies suggests our patch of the cosmos could be totally free of the stuff.

If the only matter in the Milky Way is the visible stuff like stars and planets, then stars at the edge are moving too quickly to be held by our galaxy's gravity.

In order to keep the stars on the fringes from flying away, there must be some additional mass creating the extra gravity needed to hold them.