spiral galaxies tagged posts

How Disorderly Young Galaxies Grow Up and Mature

Images of space from computer simulation
Using a supercomputer, the researchers created a high-resolution simulation

Using a supercomputer simulation, a research team at Lund University in Sweden has succeeded in following the development of a galaxy over a span of 13.8 billion years. The study shows how, due to interstellar frontal collisions, young and chaotic galaxies over time mature into spiral galaxies such as the Milky Way.

Soon after the Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago, the Universe was an unruly place. Galaxies constantly collided. Stars formed at an enormous rate inside gigantic gas clouds. However, after a few billion years of intergalactic chaos, the unruly, embryonic galaxies became more stable and over time matured into well-ordered spiral galaxies...

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A Peculiar Galactic Clash

Arp 256 is a stunning system of two spiral galaxies, about 350 million light-years away, in an early stage of merging. The image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, displays two galaxies with strongly distorted shapes and an astonishing number of blue knots of star formation that look like exploding fireworks. The star formation was triggered by the close interaction between the two galaxies. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA

Arp 256 is a stunning system of two spiral galaxies, about 350 million light-years away, in an early stage of merging. The image, taken with the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, displays two galaxies with strongly distorted shapes and an astonishing number of blue knots of star formation that look like exploding fireworks. The star formation was triggered by the close interaction between the two galaxies. Credit: ESA/Hubble, NASA

Galaxies are not static islands of stars – they are dynamic and ever-changing, constantly on the move through the darkness of the Universe. Sometimes, as seen in this spectacular Hubble image of Arp 256, galaxies can collide in a crash of cosmic proportions...

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Shedding Light on Galaxies’ Rotation Secrets

Image: . Angular Momentum of Early- and Late-type Galaxies: Nature or Nurture? The Astrophysical Journal, 2017; 843 (2): 105 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa7893

Image: . Angular Momentum of Early- and Late-type Galaxies: Nature or Nurture? The Astrophysical Journal, 2017; 843 (2): 105 DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/aa7893

The dichotomy concerns the so-called angular momentum (per unit mass), that in physics is a measure of size and rotation velocity. Spiral galaxies are found to be strongly rotating, with an angular momentum higher by a factor of about 5 than ellipticals. What is the origin of such a difference? An international research team investigated the issue in a study just published in the Astrophysical Journal. The team was led by SISSA Ph.D. student JingJing Shi under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Lapi and Luigi Danese, and in collaboration with Prof. Huiyuan Wang from USTC (Hefei) and Dr. Claudia Mancuso from IRA-INAF (Bologna). The res...
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Hubble’s Glittering Frisbee Galaxy

This image from Hubble's Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) shows a section of NGC 1448, a spiral galaxy located about 50 million light-years from Earth in the little-known constellation of Horologium (The Pendulum Clock). Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

This image from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) shows a section of NGC 1448, a spiral galaxy located about 50 million light-years from Earth in the little-known constellation of Horologium (The Pendulum Clock). Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA

Hubble caught a cross-section of NGC 1448, a spiral galaxy located about 50 million light-years from Earth. This image from Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) shows a section of NGC 1448, a spiral galaxy located about 50 million light-years from Earth in the little-known constellation of Horologium (The Pendulum Clock). We tend to think of spiral galaxies as massive and roughly circular celestial bodies, so this glittering oval does not immediately appear to fit the visual bill. What’s going on?

Imagine a spiral galaxy as a circular frisbee spinning ge...

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