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A galaxy lacking dark matter

Nature volume 555, pages 629–632 (2018)Cite this article

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A Brief Communications Arising to this article was published on 12 September 2018

Abstract

Studies of galaxy surveys in the context of the cold dark matter paradigm have shown that the mass of the dark matter halo and the total stellar mass are coupled through a function that varies smoothly with mass. Their average ratio Mhalo/Mstars has a minimum of about 30 for galaxies with stellar masses near that of the Milky Way (approximately 5 × 1010 solar masses) and increases both towards lower masses and towards higher masses1,2. The scatter in this relation is not well known; it is generally thought to be less than a factor of two for massive galaxies but much larger for dwarf galaxies3,4. Here we report the radial velocities of ten luminous globular-cluster-like objects in the ultra-diffuse galaxy5 NGC1052–DF2, which has a stellar mass of approximately 2 × 108 solar masses. We infer that its velocity dispersion is less than 10.5 kilometres per second with 90 per cent confidence, and we determine from this that its total mass within a radius of 7.6 kiloparsecs is less than 3.4 �� 108 solar masses. This implies that the ratio Mhalo/Mstars is of order unity (and consistent with zero), a factor of at least 400 lower than expected2. NGC1052–DF2 demonstrates that dark matter is not always coupled with baryonic matter on galactic scales.

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Figure 1: HST/Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) image of NGC1052–DF2.
Figure 2: Spectra of the compact objects.
Figure 3: Velocity dispersion.
Figure 4: Constraints on the halo mass.

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Acknowledgements

A.J.R. was supported by National Science Foundation grant AST-1616710 and as a Research Corporation for Science Advancement Cottrell Scholar. Results are based on observations obtained with the W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea, Hawaii. We are grateful for the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain and wish to acknowledge its important cultural role within the indigenous Hawaiian community.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Astronomy Department, Yale University, New Haven, 06511, Connecticut, USA

    Pieter van Dokkum, Shany Danieli, Yotam Cohen, Allison Merritt & Lamiya Mowla

  2. Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, Heidelberg, D-69117, Germany

    Allison Merritt

  3. Department of Physics and Astronomy, San Jose State University, San Jose, 95192, California, USA

    Aaron J. Romanowsky

  4. University of California Observatories, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, 95064, California, USA

    Aaron J. Romanowsky & Jean Brodie

  5. Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, University of Toronto, 50 St. George Street, Toronto, M5S 3H4, Ontario, Canada

    Roberto Abraham, Deborah Lokhorst & Jielai Zhang

  6. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, 02138, Massachusetts, USA

    Charlie Conroy & Ewan O’Sullivan

Authors
  1. Pieter van Dokkum
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Contributions

P.v.D. led the observations, data reduction and analysis, and wrote the manuscript. S.D. visually identified the galaxy in the Dragonfly data and created the model galaxies to determine the distance. Y.C. measured the structural parameters of the object. A.M. used an automated approach to verify the visual detections of low-surface-brightness galaxies in the Dragonfly data. J.Z. and A.M. reduced the Dragonfly data. E.O’S. provided the MMT image. All authors contributed to aspects of the analysis and to the writing of the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Pieter van Dokkum.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended Data Figure 1 NGC1052–DF2 in the Dragonfly field.

The full Dragonfly field, approximately 11 degree2, centred on NGC 1052. The zoom-in shows the immediate surroundings of NGC 1052, with NGC1052–DF2 highlighted in the inset.

Extended Data Figure 2 Comparison to Local Group galaxies.

Open symbols are galaxies from the Nearby Dwarf Galaxies catalogue15 and the solid symbol with error bars is NGC1052–DF2. The size of each symbol indicates the logarithm of the stellar mass, as shown in the key. There are no galaxies in the Local Group that are similar to NGC1052–DF2. Galaxies with a similar velocity dispersion are a factor of about 10 smaller and have stellar masses that are a factor of about 100 larger. The object labelled And XIX is an Andromeda satellite that is thought to be in the process of tidal disruption55.

Extended Data Figure 3 Analysis of surface brightness fluctuation.

We use the surface brightness fluctuation (SBF) signal in the HST I814 band to constrain the distance to NGC1052–DF2. a, The galaxy after subtracting a smooth model and masking background galaxies and globular clusters. The image spans 33″ × 33″. b, The azimuthally averaged power spectrum. Following previous studies9,46,47, the power spectrum is fitted by a combination of a constant (dotted line) and an expectation power spectrum E(k) (dashed line). From the normalization of E(k) we find that the SBF magnitude m814 = 29.45 ± 0.10. The implied distance is DSBF = 19.0 ± 1.7 Mpc, consistent with the 20 Mpc distance of the luminous elliptical galaxy NGC 1052.

Extended Data Figure 4 Morphological coherence.

a, The sum of g and r images taken with the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. The image was smoothed by a 10″ × 10″ median filter to bring out faint emission. The lowest surface brightness levels visible in the image are about 29 mag arcsec−2. b, Sum of SDSS g, r and i images. In SDSS, the overdensity of compact objects stands out. c, The Gemini-North i-band image of NGC1052–DF2, which provides the best information on the morphology of the galaxy. Black ellipses mark R = Re and R = 2Re. White arrows mark the most obvious reduction artefacts. The galaxy is regular out to at least R ≈ 2Re, with a well-defined centre and a position angle and axis ratio that do not vary strongly with radius.

Extended Data Figure 5 Are the globular clusters in a thin rotating disk?

a, b, Globular cluster velocities as a function of projected position along the major axis (a) and the minor axis (b). There is no evidence for any trends. For reference, a Gaussian with σ = 8.4 km s−1 is shown in b.

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van Dokkum, P., Danieli, S., Cohen, Y. et al. A galaxy lacking dark matter. Nature 555, 629–632 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature25767

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Comments

Commenting on this article is now closed.

  1. Mike Funk

    This is a significant discovery. It may go a long way toward determining what exactly dark matter is.

  2. laugh_or_cry

    sounds kind of lonely out there with so few stars

  3. Xinhang Shen

    This is a critical discovery that indicates the motions of stars can not be simply determined by the mass of "dark matter" only, but many other factors as well. As Einstein's relativity has been disproved (https://www.researchgate.ne... ), now we know that the vacuum space is filled up by a fluid aether as the medium of light. It is not mysterious dark matter, but aether that provides the extra gravitation to bind stars in galaxies. Aether has mass, gravitation, viscosity, compressibility, pressure, temperature, and others, just like air. The mechanism of the motions of stars in a galaxy is very complicated because they are influenced not only by gravitation, but also the flow pattern of aether which are governed by non-linear partial differential Navier-Stokes equations. These simplified methods currently employed in the research of cosmology are just very rough approximations.

  4. BlazFilip Replied to Xinhang Shen

    You cannot really make such claims as "Einstein's relativity has been disproved" and use your own article as proof. Einstein's theory has been accepted worldwide by scientists and has been the groundwork for our physics, simply writing a paper of what you think is correct, which currently has only 273 reads, and then stating that vacuum is filled with fluid aether, which has been a controversial theory, and would support your paper is plain biased.

    To claim a certain paper has disproved a certain theory it has to be wildly accepted first, and mutually agreed upon. You haven't even been able to defend your thesis in the comments below your paper from a single individual.

    I respect people who think critically and want to check the legitimacy of already existing theories, but please do not go around and act like you're stating facts and make bold claims your paper is disproving something until you can present it and defend it a thousand times over and until other scientists mutually accept it. Instead of stating "As Einstein's relativity has been disproved" as a fact, state it as your opinion, while also making sure you do make it obvious it is your paper "in my paper I try to disprove", as well as "I believe that this shows that vacuum space if filled up by a fluid aether" rather than stating it as a fact.

  5. Xinhang Shen Replied to BlazFilip

    Yes, I have to claim that. Only when it is claimed, I can get into the process to challenge and defend my claims through debates. If you have found any error in my paper, let's debate.

  6. BlazFilip Replied to Xinhang Shen

    No, to claim something and state it as a fact means it's correct, and for something to be correct it has to be wildly agreed upon.

    You can state it as your opinion, your belief and your theory, after which people can discuss it.

    Still to this day we call things we know as facts "theories"; Einstein's theory, Newton's theory, etc.
    Because when they though of something, they though of a theory and wrote a paper on it. Then when other scientists study the theory and find it plausible and agree with it, we accept it as a fact.

    You're completely skipping the "It's my opinion" stage, and automatically claiming it's a fact, purely because you believe in it. At that point it's called being delusional.

    You propose that we debate if I've found any errors in your paper so you can defend your claims, but I don't have to. At March 11, 2016, a user already commented on your paper and challenged your beliefs. Yet you have failed to defend it.

    March 10, 2016, he wrote a lengthy comment challenging your paper, to which you responded with two short, vague sentences that didn't actually say anything non-trivial. He again raised a challenge to you at March 11, 2016, to which even to this day, 2 years later, you still haven't responded and defended your paper.

    So what's the point of trying to debate it with me, and not continuing to defend it against someone who already stated you incorrect? Is it because it's out of your league and you cant defend it properly, and you think maybe it'd be easier to defend against myself?

    You're being very biased in your approach and are trying to pick and choose your battles, instead of fighting tooth and nail against every single person that challenges your paper if you truly believe in what you claimed in it, which are not really great qualities for a scientist to have.

  7. Xinhang Shen Replied to BlazFilip

    It seems that you can't find any problem in my paper at all as you try to rely on the false challenge of someone else on the Researchgate, which I have refuted now. If you don't agree, then it's time for you to make your challenge. If you can't, please keep quiet.

  8. BlazFilip Replied to Xinhang Shen

    I'm glad you did, but I still wonder why did you not respond to the person earlier, if as you state his challenge was a false one, which by the way is not a thing, if he challenges your paper it's a challenge, no challenge is "false"; surely it would be quick and easy to shut it down, 2 years ago when it was due.

    Also purely because I'm not willing to put away my time to challenge your paper because I don't deem it worthy of my time, doesn't mean I'm not allowed to criticize you and the way you expressed yourself, everyone has the right to criticize and to be criticized at any point.

    My main point was that you cannot just blatantly say "I've disproved this." when nobody else agrees with you and it isn't accepted world wide. And purely because nobody challenged your paper doesn't make it right either. You could write a paper about a topic, and hide it away in your basement. Nobody challenged it, since obviously it's unknown, and therefore it must be correct right?

    You wrote a paper, nobody knows about it, it has been two years and it hasn't gained any traction, nor does it seem you believe in it so much that you tried fighting tooth and nail to get it promoted and out into the world so people can read it, think about it and voice their opinion about it.

    I'm sure you're aware of what the null hypothesis is and this clearly hasn't passed it at all.

    Imagine if I wrote a paper on how 2+2 is 3 and not 4. 2 years later only 200 people read it and nobody challenged me, because it's ridiculous. That surely must mean I have proven that truly 2+2 is 3, and that now I can go around claiming that it is 3 and that I have disproven it. That's just plain arrogance and delusion.

  9. Xinhang Shen Replied to BlazFilip

    You just live in your imagination. My papers (not just one) have already been published on the proceedings of a conference and an international journal, both of which are peer-reviewed. They have already got substantial attention in the world, though the mainstream physicists still stubbornly refuse to accept it and refuse to debate like you due to the fear to lose their reputation, position, funding, etc.

    As you said that I should not keep it in my basement, I must make open challenges to the authorities so that more and more people will know it. If it was wrong, they could have defeated it. But after more than two years, nobody has presented any valid refutation yet. I will claim it as a truth that I have disproved Einstein's relativity unless I am defeated by facts or logic.

  10. Rodney Bartlett

    General Relativity says gravity is a push exerted by space-time curvature. Gravity as a push means the galaxy's edges are being pushed towards its centre, thus holding it together (same pattern for all galaxies). Dark energy, dark matter & cosmic expansion are properties which need to be added when Einstein's General Relativity is misunderstood. More (including about formation) at https://figshare.com/articl...

  11. Colin Rourke

    This paper shows that current mainstream galactic structure theory based on inert dark matter is wrong.

    I would like to recommend reading my book "A new paradigm for the universe": https://arxiv.org/abs/astro...

    This book suggests an alternative description of dark matter as a carrier for the "inertial drag force" emanating from the hyper massive rotating black hole at the centre of normal galaxies, which is responsible for mediating the rotation part of Mach's principle. The resulting dynamic theory accurately predicts both the rotation curve and the spiral structure of a normal galaxy.

    The reason that the galaxy in the paper does not have the usual rotation curve is that the central black hole is either missing or has insufficient mass and/or angular velocity to produce a normal rotation curve.

    Colin Rourke
    Emeritus Professor of Mathematics
    University of Warwick, Coventry, UK

  12. ForzenInMichigan

    It's almost like we don't even need "dark matter" at all. Perhaps it was put in just to explain something they didn't understand.

  13. Hosni

    The density of dark matter near earth and in the small galaxy may be approximately the same, so the effects of dark matter cannot be measured from earth. If you occupy the same gravity (i.e., dark matter) field as another object, the field cannot be observed in relative movements between the two objects.

    As a hypothesis, it appears that the small galaxy does not have a black hole.

    So little is known about black holes and dark matter that a modicum of humility would be displayed by the authors. They measured something, and now they’re offering a hypothetical explanation for it.

  14. Mark Thomas

    What if the Big Bang expansion was similar to the carbonation or bubbles spewing out of a soda bottle. A chaotic distribution of bubble formation pushes some Dark Matter out of reach of some pockets.

  15. Ге��рги Кънев

    Let review page 137 USM www.kanevuniverse.com where we can see that indeed the
    effective radius of our galaxy is around 100 folds bigger than the visual
    radius and interestingly to suggest also page 134 where is calculated the
    resonance radius of neutrino and again page 95 where is shown how this radius
    is obtained; Page 137:

    “Finally let we pay attention to the following discrepancy: On (122) we
    calculated that the resonance radius of neutrino is equal to: this resonance
    radius must be coincide with the resonance radius
    of Galaxy, equal to: , because to the nucleus in our space correspond the
    Galaxy in over-space. The difference of the order of 100 times may to explain
    by next: The effective density of substance in Galaxy, although with ignored
    small value, continues in between Galaxy’s space until to distances of the
    order of 100 times bigger compare to the radius of Galaxy. It naturally doesn’t
    influence upon the accuracy so far we calculated, because we speak about
    ignored small density compare to this one of whole mass of Galaxy. For the
    neutrino however the resonance interaction, by which it is creates its properly
    field, is getting by the effectively gravitational field of Galaxy, which is
    spreads until to distances 100 times bigger compare to the radius of Galaxy.
    Further we can see that it is not accidentally.

    And now, from the point of view of USM, we will
    give answer to the next question: Why on the week interactions the parity
    doesn’t preserve?

    First of all let we define the essence of concept –
    parity. In part III p.3 fig. 33, we saw that the spin of free particle reflects
    the polarization of space, provoked by the polarizing”……. G.Kanev

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