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Cosmology CIA

Spiral galaxies have winding arms and bright centers, and form stars actively. Spiral galaxies can be barred or normal. Elliptical galaxies are the most common and largest galaxies, and may form from mergers. Irregular galaxies lack defined shapes and were more common in the early universe. Galaxy evolution involves transitions between categories over time as galaxies collide and interact.

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28 views4 pages

Cosmology CIA

Spiral galaxies have winding arms and bright centers, and form stars actively. Spiral galaxies can be barred or normal. Elliptical galaxies are the most common and largest galaxies, and may form from mergers. Irregular galaxies lack defined shapes and were more common in the early universe. Galaxy evolution involves transitions between categories over time as galaxies collide and interact.

Uploaded by

ramya.ramya
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Spiral Galaxies

Spiral galaxies have winding spiral arms that make them look a little like massive
pinwheels. These disks of stars, gas, and dust have bright bulges in their centers
made up primarily of older and dimmer stars. Their whirled arms are typically full of
gas and dust, which helps give rise to the bright, younger stars visible throughout
their length. Spiral galaxies are actively forming stars and make up a large amount
of all the galaxies in our nearby universe.
Spiral galaxies can be further divided into two groups: normal spirals and barred
spirals. In barred spirals, a bar of stars runs through the central bulge of the galaxy.
The arms of barred spirals usually start at the end of the bar instead of the bulge.
Our Milky Way is thought to be a barred spiral galaxy.

Elliptical Galaxies
Elliptical galaxies are the biggest and most common galaxies in our universe. The
shapes of these galaxies range from circular to very elongated. Galaxies are
thought to form and grow by collisions and mergers, and elliptical galaxies may be
the ultimate result of this process, which explains why they are so abundant.
Compared to other types of galaxies, elliptical galaxies have smaller portions of gas
and dust, contain older stars, and don’t form many new stars. The largest and rarest
of these galaxies – known as giant ellipticals – are about 300,000 light-years across.
More commonly spotted are dwarf ellipticals, which in comparison are only a few
thousand light-years wide.

Irregular Galaxies
Irregular galaxies don’t contain much dust, and lack a defined shape. Astronomers
often see irregular galaxies as they peer deeply into the universe. These galaxies
are abundant in the early universe, in the era before spirals and ellipticals
developed. As irregular galaxies collide and merge with other galaxies throughout
time, they are thought to develop structure and become the spiral and elliptical
galaxies we see in today’s universe.
In addition to these three big categories, astronomers have also observed many
unusually shaped galaxies that appear to be in a transitory or “in-between” phase of
galactic evolution, including galaxies that are colliding or interacting with each
other, pulled together by gravity.

Top-down theories claim that the largest structures formed first, thereafter
subdividing into clusters, groups, and galaxies. Bottom-up theories assert that the
Universe�s primordial seeds formed protogalaxies and that these objects
subsequently to together to form galaxies, groups, clusters, and so on.

Today, the Lambda Cold Dark Matter (or LCDM) model is the latest
incarnation of our understanding about the origin of the Cosmos. It represents
an improvement of the big bang theory by positing most of the physical
substance in the Universe consists of a material called dark matter.

Although it cannot be detected by current instrumentation, cosmologists


believe dark matter is comprised of cold slow moving particles that do not emit
electromagnetic radiation or scatter light, thus they also appear dark. However,
the gravitational effect of dark matter can be observed on visible material, such
as galaxies and observations of background radiation. The Lambda in the
theory's name accounts for the presence of dark energy, a hypothetical force that
appears to be accelerating the expansion of the Universe. The theory was
originally published in 1984 by United States physicists Joel R. Primack, George
Blumenthal, and Sandra Moore Faber. Today, it's also referenced as
the standard cosmological model.

According to the LCDM theory, the Universe was intensely hot, remarkably
smooth and essentially homogeneous immediately following the Big Bang.
However, small fluctuations in density, less than one part in a hundred thousand,
began to appear and grow. As the universe cooled, clumps of dark matter began
to condense and within them gas molecules formed. At this point the universe
was almost exclusively composed of hydrogen, helium, and dark matter. This is
the period when the cosmic microwave background radiation was emitted.

The gas and dark matter were gravitationally attracted to the areas of higher
density and formed halos that represented the seeds for the first galaxies. As the
halos became more massive, they began to collapse under their own weight and
became proto-galaxies. Soon after, the hydrogen and helium gas within the halos
began to make the first stars. Then, over time, the halos merged to form larger
and larger galaxies. Computer simulations have enabled theorists to follow the
evolution of matter in the Universe from a short time after the Big Bang until
recently. These simulations contend that galaxy formation in the presence of cold
dark matter occurs hierarchically - the first galaxies to form are small dwarfs
and these subsequently merge to form progressively larger star systems.
Therefore, large galaxies like the Milky Way must have consumed a hundred or
more small dwarf galaxies over time. However, many of them may be so
thoroughly mixed with the stars of their parent galaxy they are no longer easily
identifiable.
Building on the Legacy of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and
SDSS-II, the SDSS-III Collaboration is working to map the Milky Way,
search for extrasolar planets, and solve the mystery of dark energy.
and solve the mystery of dark energy.

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