Galaxies

Galaxies.

A galaxy is a large collection of stars or cluster of stars and celestial bodies held together by gravitational attraction. There are about billions of galaxies in the universe. Most galaxies range from thousand to ten thousand parsec in diameter. As we have different types of houses in a locality, the galaxies are also of different types.

Types of galaxies

There are various types of galaxies such as spiral, elliptical, barred spiral and irregular

Spiral Galaxy

Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as the bulge. These are often surrounded by a much fainter halo of stars. Spiral galaxies are named by their spiral structures that extend from the center into the galactic disc. The spiral arms are sites of ongoing star formation and are brighter than the surrounding disc because of the young, hot stars that inhabit them.

Elliptical Galaxy

An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy having an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth image. Unlike flat spiral galaxies with organization and structure, elliptical galaxies are three-dimensional, without much structure, and their stars are in somewhat random orbits around the center. Interestingly Stars found inside of elliptical galaxies are on an average much older than stars found in spiral galaxies. Elliptical galaxies tend to be surrounded by large numbers of globular clusters.

Irregular Galaxy

An irregular galaxy is a galaxy that does not have a distinct regular shape, unlike a spiral or an elliptical galaxy, they are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a nuclear bulge nor any trace of spiral arm structure. About one forth of the galaxies found so far are of this type.

Cosmologists say that some irregular galaxies were once spiral or elliptical galaxies but were deformed by an uneven external gravitational force. Irregular galaxies may contain abundant amounts of gas and dust.

Barred Spiral

A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of Stars. Bars are found in approximately in two-thirds to one third of all spiral galaxies. The Milky Way Galaxy, where our own Solar System is located, is classified as a barred spiral galaxy.