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    Dark Matter goes Missing in Oddball Galaxy

    March 29, 2018, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    This large, fuzzy-looking galaxy is so diffuse that astronomers call it a 'see-through' galaxy because they can clearly see distant galaxies behind it. The ghostly object, catalogued as NGC 1052-DF2, doesn't have a noticeable central region, or even spiral arms and a disk, typical features of a spiral galaxy. But it doesn't look like an elliptical galaxy, either. Even its globular clusters are oddballs: they are twice as large as typical stellar groupings seen in other galaxies. All of these oddities pale in comparison to the weirdest aspect of this galaxy: NGC 1052-DF2 is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. van Dokkum (Yale University)

    This large, fuzzy-looking galaxy is so diffuse that astronomers call it a ‘see-through’ galaxy because they can clearly see distant galaxies behind it. The ghostly object, catalogued as NGC 1052-DF2, doesn’t have a noticeable central region, or even spiral arms and a disk, typical features of a spiral galaxy. But it doesn’t look like an elliptical galaxy, either. Even its globular clusters are oddballs: they are twice as large as typical stellar groupings seen in other galaxies. All of these oddities pale in comparison to the weirdest aspect of this galaxy: NGC 1052-DF2 is missing most, if not all, of its dark matter. Credit: NASA, ESA, and P. van Dokkum (Yale University)

    Galaxies and dark matter go together like peanut butter and jelly. You typically don’t find one without the other...

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