Introduction to Galaxies

Chapter 9
Earth and Space Science Class
 What are Galaxies?
Galaxy - a group of billions of stars
and their planets, gas, and dust that
extends over many thousands of light-
years and forms a unit within the
universe.
The word “Galaxy” originates from
the Greek word gala, meaning “milk.”
 The “Discovery” of Galaxies

At the beginning of the

20th century, what we
now call spiral galaxies
were referred to as
“spiral nebulae” and
most astronomers
believed them to be
clouds of gas and stars
associated with our own
Milky Way.
(NOAO/AURA Photo)

Edwin P. Hubble (1889-1953)

 Galaxy Classification
In 1924, Edwin
Hubble divided
galaxies into
different
“classes”
based on their
appearance
(shape).
•Hubble classification serves as the basic
language of the field.
•There are three general types: elliptical,
spiral, and irregular.
GALAXY CLASSIFICATION
1. Galaxy Classification
Ellipticals
Dwarf Ellipticals
Spirals
Barred Spirals
Irregulars
2. Measuring Properties
of Galaxies
Distances
Sizes
Luminosities
Masses
 Examples of Three Main Galaxy Types

Elliptical Spiral Irregular

 Spiral Galaxies
 are surrounded by sparsely
populated halos — roughly
spherical regions above and
below the plane of the discs.
 Bright emission nebulae and
hot, young stars are present,
especially in the spiral arms.
Spiral galaxies consist of a central bulge, a halo, a
disk, and spiral arms.
Spiral Galaxies
Comprise about 2/3rds of bright galaxies

Spirals clearly contain much gas and dust

Most starlight is from young, blue stars -
ongoing star formation
 Spirals are classified by their relative amount of
disk and bulge components.
 We designate these Sa, Sb, Sc, in order of
decreasing bulge to disk ratio.
 Barred spirals are called SBa, SBb, SBc
Sa-large bulge, small arms,
moderate amount of interstellar
material and star formation
Sb-medium bulge, more
interstellar materials
Sc- small bulge, strong arms, lots
of interstellar material and star
formation
Sd- virtually no bulge
What does it mean
when there is a
greater disk?
More disk means
more star formation!
• Unlike a regular spiral, a barred
spiral contains a bar across its center
region, and has two major arms.
• The Milky Way also contains two
significant minor arms, as well as two
smaller spurs. One of the spurs, known
as the Orion Arm, contains the sun
and the solar system. The Orion arm is
located between two major arms,
Perseus and Sagittarius.
The Milky Way galaxy, a barred spiral galaxy.
Elliptical Galaxies
have a smooth ellipsoidal or spherical
appearance, and they have far less structure than
spiral galaxies do.
typically contain a much greater proportion of
older stars than spiral galaxies do.
There is a common misconception that
astronomers used to think that elliptical galaxies
were the evolutionary forerunners to spiral
galaxies, because Hubble himself referred to
elliptical galaxies as ‘early-type’ and spiral
galaxies as ‘late-type’.
Elliptical galaxies and Spiral
Galaxy have one thing in
common apart from stars is that
they both have a supermassive
black hole at the center of the
galaxy.
Stars in a spiral galaxy orbit round the
central point, the Supermassive Black
Hole.
Although individual stars orbit the
center of an elliptical galaxy, the
orbits are not all in the same
direction, as occurs in spirals.
The orbits of the constituent stars
are random and often very
elongated, leading to a shape for
the galaxy determined by the speed
of the stars in each direction.
are seen as being at the end of their lives
because of not much star formation going
on.
IC 1101 is an old galaxy and a greedy one
too, it is believed to have grown in size by
consuming passing galaxies.
Galactic cannibalism isn't limited to
ellipticals, our galaxy is believed to be
consuming the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy.
As the CMa dwarf galaxy is small, there is
not much influence on our galaxy from
consuming it.
IC 1101
The most well known Elliptical
Galaxy is IC 1101 which
happens to be the largest
known Elliptical galaxy known
to exist. In fact, the galaxy is
the largest galaxy of any
type known to exist.
Elliptical galaxies are called “E”
galaxies.
Elliptical galaxies are classified, roundest
to most oblong, as E0, E2, E3, E4, E5, E6,
E7.
Elliptical galaxies really are ellipsoids,
somewhat football-shaped, and quite
unlike the flat disks of spiral galaxies that,
seen at an angle, also may appear elliptical.
Hubble denoted elliptical galaxies with the letter
E. He further subdivided ellipticals according to
the amount of elongation of the ellipse, using
numbers from 0 to 7. An E0 galaxy appears
spherical. The most elongated elliptical galaxies
are E7. The E1 through E6 galaxies are
intermediate.
The elliptical galaxy Messier 87
(M87) is the home of several
trillion stars, a supermassive
black hole and a family of
roughly 15,000 globular star
clusters.
Discovered in 1781 by Charles
Messier.
 Irregular Galaxies
An irregular galaxy is the catchall name
given to any galaxy that does not neatly fit
into one of the categories of the Hubble
classification scheme.
 They have no defined shape nor structure
and may have formed from collisions, close
encounters with other galaxies or violent
internal activity.
They contain both old and young stars,
significant amounts of gas and usually
exhibit bright knots of star formation.
They are among the smallest galaxies and
are full of gas and dust. Having a lot of
gas and dust means that these galaxies
have a lot of star formation going on
within them. This can make them very
bright.
The Large and Small Magellanic
Clouds are examples of irregular
galaxies. They are two small galaxies
which orbit around our own Milky Way
Galaxy. About 20% of all galaxies are
 The Large and Small Magellanic “Clouds”

The SMC and LMC are small Irregular

galaxies that are satellites of the Milky
Way Galaxy.

The LMC is still

forming stars.
The SMC is not
forming new stars.
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)
Small Magellanic Cloud
Two major subtypes:
NGC 4485-Irr II M82-Irr II LMC - Irr I

•Irr I: spiral-like but without

defined arms, show bright knots
with O,B stars
•Irr II: contain many dust lanes
and gas filaments (e.g. M82)
 Disks vs. Bulges
Disks:
• flattened systems that rotate
• orbits of stars and gas are “circular”, rotating
about disk axis
• star formation is on-going; it is can be fairly
constant over the age of the galaxy
•on-going star formation, ages of stars widely
range from age of galaxy to new
• spiral arms form as sustained density waves;
where majority of star formation occurs
 Bulges:
• spheriodal systems with little or no rotation
• orbits of stars are randomly oriented and
highly eccentric (some are radial)
• star formation complete long ago; gas
consumed efficiently long ago
• ages of stars are mainly old; most as old as the
galaxy
• very little to no gas; it has been converted to
stars already
• overall structure is smooth- no clumpy areas
like analogous to spiral arms in disks
What Happens When
Two Galaxies Collide
“When two galaxies start to
merge, their central
supermassive black holes sink to
the center of this newly formed
galaxy and eventually merge”
into a single, bigger black hole
In the case of three colliding galaxies,
“the likeliest scenario is that two of
them will form a binary system,” and
when the third arrives and starts
interacting with the others, “the least
massive one gets kicked out, and could
actually be completely kicked out of the
galaxy.”
Our Milky Way is on a collision course with another
spiral galaxy called Andromeda.
Today Andromeda is visible as a speck of
light in the night sky, but about 5 billion
years from now, it will be tangled up with us.
Our galaxy’s spiral arms will disappear, and
so will our supermassive black hole.
Andromeda’s central black hole has the mass
of 100 million suns, and it will quickly
swallow up our own, which has a
comparatively tiny mass of 4 million suns.
Stars will be thrown out of the galaxy,
others will be destroyed as they crash
into the merging supermassive black
holes. And the delicate spiral structure of
both galaxies will be destroyed as they
destroyed as they become a single, giant,
elliptical galaxy.

https://phys.org/news/2016-10-galaxies-
collide.html
Consequences:
1.Large galaxies absorb smaller galaxies
entirely, tearing them apart and
incorporating their stars. But when the
galaxies are similar in size, the close
encounter destroys the spiral structure
entirely and become a giant elliptical
galaxy.
2. can also trigger a small amount of
star formation.
When the galaxies collide, it causes
vast clouds of hydrogen to collect and
become compressed.
3. A galaxy collision also causes a
galaxy to age prematurely, since much
of its gas is converted into stars.
After this period of star formation,
galaxies run out of fuel. The youngest
hottest stars detonate as supernovae,
and all that's left are the older, cooler
red stars with much longer lives. This is
why giant elliptical galaxies, the results
of galaxy collisions, have so many old
red stars and very little active star
formation.
 Clusters of Galaxies

Coma Cluster
(NOAO/AURA Photo)
 Rather than occurring individually in space,
galaxies are grouped in clusters ranging in size
from a few dozens to thousands of galaxies. The
Coma Cluster is 300 million light years from the
Milky Way and contains more than 1,000 (and
possibly as many as 10,000) galaxies.

 The Milky Way is a member of a small cluster

called the Local Group which contains about 40
galaxies. The largest member of the Local Group
is M 31, with the Milky Way coming in second
in size.
 Examples
of Galaxies
 M31
This
nearby
galaxy in
the Local
Group of
galaxies, of
which the
Milky Way
is a
member, is
2.5 million
light years
away.
 The
Nuclear
Bulge of
M31
Young stars have
formed along the
foreground
spiral arm.
M31’s two
satellite galaxies
M32 and NGC
205, both dwarf
elliptical
galaxies, are in
the bottom
center and upper
right.
(NOAO/AURA Photos)
The Outer
Disk of
M31

(NOAO/AURA Photos)
 Central
Region of
the Spiral
Galaxy
M 51

(Hubble Space Telescope

Image)
Barred Spiral Galaxies
The spiral galaxies M 91 (left) and M 109 (right) have bars across their nuclei from which spiral arms
unwind. In virtually all spirals (barred or not) the galaxies rotate such that the spiral arms trail behind in
the rotation. The Milky Way is thought to be a barred spiral galaxy. (NOAO/AURA Photos)
Types of Galaxies II. Ellipticals
Elliptical galaxies lack spiral
arms and dust and contain
stars that are generally
identified as being old. The
elliptical galaxies M 32 (below)
and M 110 (right) show
varying degrees of ellipticity.
(NOAO/AURA Photos)
 Types of Galaxies III. Irregulars
Irregular galaxies lack any
specific form and contain
stars, gas and dust
generally associated with a
youth. The irregular galaxy
at right is the Large
Magellanic Cloud, a
satellite of the Milky Way
located about 180,000 light
years from the sun. The
LMC is about 60,000 light
years across. The bright
reddish feature in the upper
right is the “Tarantula
Nebula” a region of star
formation in the LMC.
(NOAO/AURA Photo)
 Dwarf
Irregular
Galaxy
in
Sagittarius

Hubble Space Telescope Image

 Galaxies in Collision
In this close encounter between two spiral galaxies, their arms are dramatically warped and massive
star formation is triggered when the hydrogen gas clouds in the two collide. It is believed the Milky
Way may have “cannibalized” small galaxies in the past through collision.

Hubble Space Telescope Image

The Disrupted Galaxy NGC 5128
 Active Galaxies I.
The galaxy NGC 7742
is an otherwise normal
spiral galaxy except for
its extraordinarily
bright nucleus that
outshines the rest of the
galaxy. Such galaxies,
i.e. spirals with
extremely bright nuclei,
form a class of active
galaxies known as
Seyfert galaxies.
Hubble Space Telescope Image
Active Galaxies II.
The elliptical galaxy M87, shown
below in a wide-field ground-based
image, has a very bright, point-like
nucleus from which a jet of
material emanates. The jet is seen
in great detail from an HST image
at right.

Hubble Space Telescope Image

 Active Galaxies III. NGC 4139 Mkn 205
This image shows the spiral
galaxy NGC 4319 and the
quasar Markarian 205. The
distance to NGC is 80 million
light years, which Mkn 205 is
14 times farther away at a
distance of 1 billion light year.
The very distant quasar is
nearly as bright as the much
closer galaxy. The
extraordinary brightness of
quasars, which is a blending of
the term quasi-stellar radio
source, indicates that some
incredibly powerful
mechanism must be producing
enormous amounts of energy
from a small volume of space. Hubble Space Telescope Image