physical properties tagged posts

Astronomers Shed Light on Different Galaxy Types

Galaxies of Stephan's Quintet in the constellation Pegasus, observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team.

Galaxies of Stephan’s Quintet in the constellation Pegasus, observed by the Hubble Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble SM4 ERO Team.

Australian scientists have taken a critical step towards understanding why different types of galaxies exist throughout the Universe. The research, made possible by cutting-edge instrumentation, means that astronomers can now classify galaxies according to their physical properties rather than human interpretation of a galaxy’s appearance. For the past 100 years, telescopes have been capable of observing galaxies beyond our own galaxy, the Milky Way.

In 1926,Edwin Hubble refined a system that classified galaxies into categories of spiral, elliptical, lenticular or irregular shape...

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