A dearth of dark matter in ordinary elliptical galaxies

Science. 2003 Sep 19;301(5640):1696-8. doi: 10.1126/science.1087441. Epub 2003 Aug 28.

Abstract

The kinematics of the outer parts of three intermediate-luminosity elliptical galaxies were studied with the Planetary Nebula Spectrograph. The galaxies' velocity-dispersion profiles were found to decline with the radius, and dynamical modeling of the data indicates the presence of little if any dark matter in these galaxies' halos. This unexpected result conflicts with findings in other galaxy types and poses a challenge to current galaxy formation theories.