What if oceanographers found the "tip" of an iceberg and nothing else? Mysteriously missing was the iceberg's immense body, which extends far below the waves.

Astronomers faced this puzzle when they aimed Hubble at the spheroidal galaxy NGC 1052-DF2, or DF2. It looks like a denizen of intergalactic space that is the closest thing there is to nothing, but is still something. It's physically larger than our Milky Way, but its loose beehive swarm of stars is so thinly scattered that Hubble sees right through it, capturing myriad background galaxies.

The missing "bottom of the iceberg" for DF2 is the lack of dark matter. Galaxies are partly made up of visible matter—stars and gas. But the bulk of a galaxy's makeup is in dark matter, the invisible glue that keeps a lid on stars, so they don't escape from the galaxy.

Because this innocuous galaxy challenges conventional theories of how galaxies are put together, astronomers were naturally skeptical when it was first announced that the universe harbored such a rule breaker. After all, the entire cosmos is built on the invisible scaffolding of dark matter.

To double-check their conclusion, the researchers used a lot more Hubble exposures to better nail down the distance to the stealthy galaxy. If DF2 were closer than they thought, the dark matter mystery goes away.

They actually found that the galaxy is a little bit farther away than first measured. The researchers say the new milepost helps them confirm that dark matter is really missing in the galactic oddball. They say it's now up to theorists to figure out why.

Lee esta historia en español.