Empirical validation of the missing mass hypothesis across distinct evolutionary stages and Galactic environments. Each panel displays the vector point diagram (VPD; left) and the corresponding deep color–magnitude diagram (CMD; right) down to a magnitude limit of G ≈ 21 mag. Top left: M 67 (Old Halo). Top right: Blanco 1 (Young, High Latitude). Middle left: M 45 / Pleiades (Young Disk). Middle right: NGC 2099 (Intermediate). Bottom: NGC 7789 (Old Disk). The extended, heavily populated main sequences of unobserved M dwarfs provide robust physical evidence that the extreme apparent supervirial ratios (Q_obs) are primarily an artifact of observational truncation rather than genuine rapid dynamical expansion.

(The data used to create this figure are available in the online article.)

(The data used to create this figure are available.)