"Finding a galaxy without dark matter is unexpected because this invisible, mysterious substance is the most dominant aspect of galaxies," lead author Pieter van Dokkum of Yale University said. Astronomers have detected for the first time a galaxy that is devoid of dark matter, the plentiful but enigmatic material that does not emit light or energy and had been considered a fundamental part of all galaxies including our own Milky Way. Further measurements of the dynamical properties of 10 globular clusters orbiting the galaxy allowed the team to infer an independent value of the galaxies mass. Researchers also calculated NGC 1052-DF2's mass using motion measurements, and those measurements indicate that "[i]f there is any dark matter at all, it's very little," van Dokkum told YaleNews. And now a recent discovery from a Yale-led research team may help dramatically expand our evidence in favor of dark matter, which may sound a little strange, because its game-changing discovery is a galaxy that doesn't seem to have dark matter at all. “Dark matter is conventionally believed to be an integral part of all galaxies — the glue that holds them together and the underlying scaffolding upon which they are built,” explained study co-author Allison Merritt from Yale University in the US and the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Germany. Van Dokkum and colleagues identified the galaxy, NGC 1052-DF2, using a low-budget setup called the Dragonfly Telephoto Array in New Mexico, which they designed from 48 commercial cameras and paparazzi-style lenses. This discovery of the galaxy NGC 1052-DF2, detailed in the journal Nature, challenges currently-accepted theories of and galaxy formation and provides new insights into the nature of dark matter.
Research published in the journal Nature implies the existence of a galaxy that appears to contain no dark matter, dubbed NGC1052-DF2. If confirmed it would be the first such galaxy discovered.