Hubble finds first galaxy in the local universe without dark matter
ESA/Hubble Information Centre
An international team of researchers using the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and several other observatories have, for the first time, uncovered a galaxy that is missing most – if not all – of its dark matter. I spent an hour just staring at this image, lead researcher Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University says as he recalls first seeing the Hubble image of NGC 1052-DF2. This mass is comparable to the mass of the stars in the galaxy, leading to the conclusion that NGC 1052-DF2 contains at least 400 times less dark matter than astronomers predict for a galaxy of its mass, and possibly none at all [2]. Although counterintuitive, the existence of a galaxy without dark matter negates theories that try to explain the Universe without dark matter being a part of it [3]: The discovery of NGC 1052-DF2 demonstrates that dark matter is somehow separable from galaxies. Image credit: NASA, ESA, P. van Dokkum (Yale University) Links * Images of Hubble - http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/archive/category/spacecraft/ * Hubblesite release - http://hubblesite.org/news_release/news/2018-16 * Science paper - https://www.nature.com/articles/doi:10.1038/nature25676 Contacts Pieter van Dokkum Yale University Yale, USA Tel: +001 2034323019 Email: [email protected] Allison Merritt Max Planck Institute for Astronomy Heidelberg, Germany Tel: +49 6221 528-455 Email: [email protected] Mathias Jäger ESA/Hubble, Public Information Officer Garching bei München, Germany Tel: +49 176 62397500 Email: [email protected]