According to the most popular cosmological paradigm, the greater part of the galaxy mass is accumulated in the dark matter halo. The mass value can be measured in terms of various model assumptions, analyzing the available observational data, for example, the distribution of the rotation velocity at large distances from the center (the rotation curve). It is much more difficult to make an estimate of the shape of the dark halo in a particular galaxy, i.e. to understand whether it is spherical, flattened or triaxial.
More...