Table of Contents
What is the shape of the galaxy called?
spiral
Galaxies are classified by shape. There are three general types: elliptical, spiral, and irregular. Perhaps the most familiar kind of galaxy are spiral galaxies. They have a distinctive shape with spiral arms in a relatively flat disk and a central “bulge”.
What is the shape and composition of the Milky Way galaxy?
The Milky Way consists of a bar-shaped core region surrounded by a warped disk of gas, dust and stars. The mass distribution within the Milky Way closely resembles the type Sbc in the Hubble classification, which represents spiral galaxies with relatively loosely wound arms.
What are the 4 main shapes of galaxies?
Thanks to the work of famous astronomer Edwin Hubble we know that just about any galaxy in the universe will have one of 4 different shapes, spiral, elliptical, lenticular, and irregular. Spiral galaxies are one of the most familiar galaxy shapes.
Why is the Milky Way a spiral?
Why is the Milky Way a spiral? This is due to its rotation, or rather, the rotation of matter inside the galactic disk around the center.
What is the disk of the Milky Way?
The Disk. The disk of our galaxy is very thin, about 100 times wider than its own height. It contains almost all the gas and dust in our galaxy, as well as all the hot young stars and regions of star formation. Seen from above, the disk shows spiral arms containing most of the cool, dense portions of the ISM.
What is Milky Way in geography?
The Milky Way is the Galaxy that contains our Solar System. Its name “milky” is derived from its appearance as a dim glowing band arching across the night sky whose individual stars cannot be distinguished by the naked eyes.
What are the five types of galaxy shapes?
What gives galaxies different shapes name a few common shapes of galaxies?
The shape of Elliptical galaxies ranges from extremely flat to more spherical. The shape of Elliptical galaxies are created from collisions between numerous galaxies. After all these collisions in the course of a few hundred million to a few billion years the stars settle to form the featureless elliptical galaxies.
What are the four arms of the Milky Way called?
The Milky Way has four main spiral arms: the Norma and Cygnus arm, Sagittarius, Scutum-Crux, and Perseus. The Sun is located in a minor arm, or spur, named the Orion Spur. The galactic disk itself is about 100,000 light years across, and the bar at the center is estimated to be about 27,000 light years long.
How wide is the disc of the Milky Way?
The Milky Way is a huge disk, roughly 100,000 to 120,000 light years across. Its thickness is 1,000 light years throughout most of the disk, but there is a spheroidal bulge at the center of the galaxy that is 12,000 light years in diameter.
How wide is the Milky Way?
105,700 light years
Milky Way/Diameter
Is the Milky Way an average sized Galaxy?
According to astronomers, our Milky Way is an average-sized barred spiral galaxy measuring up to 120,000 light-years across. Our Sun is located about 27,000 light-years from the galactic core in the Orion arm.
What is the largest galaxy other than the Milky Way?
The Andromeda galaxy, the largest galactic neighbor to our own Milky Way, contains hundreds of billions of stars. Researchers literally followed the crumb trail to find globular clusters of stars that once belonged to other galaxies within Andromeda.
How many galaxies are in the Milky Way galaxy?
It is part of a system of 50 galaxies known as the Local Group, which is part of the Virgo Supercluster . Containing as many as 50 billion planets and 400 billion stars, the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy.
What galaxy does the Milky Way belong to?
Our Milky Way Galaxy belongs to a galaxy cluster called the Local Group. It contains about 30 galaxies, including our near neighbors, the Andromeda Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds , which we can see with the naked eye.