Galaxy
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NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation Coma Berenices, is about 56,000 light years in diameter and approximately 60 million light years distant. |
A
galaxy is a huge
gravitationally bound system of
stars,
interstellar gas and dust,
plasma, and (possibly) unseen
dark matter. Typical galaxies contain 10 million to one trillion (10
7 to 10
12) stars, all orbiting a common
center of gravity. In addition to single stars and a tenuous interstellar medium, most galaxies contain a large number of
multiple star systems and
star clusters as well as various types of
nebulae. Most galaxies are several thousand to several hundred thousand
light years in diameter and are usually separated from one another by distances on the order of millions of light years.
Although so-called
dark matter appears to account for around 90% of the mass of most galaxies, the nature of these unseen components is not well understood. There is some evidence that
supermassive black holes may exist at the center of many, if not all, galaxies.
Intergalactic space, the space between galaxies, is filled with a tenuous
plasma with an average density less than one atom per cubic meter. There are probably more than a hundred billion (10
11) galaxies in the
observable universe.
Galaxies come in three main types:
ellipticals,
spirals, and
irregulars. A slightly more extensive description of galaxy types based on their appearance is given by the
Hubble sequence. Since the Hubble sequence is entirely based upon visual morphological type, it may miss certain important characteristics of galaxies such as
star formation rate (in
starburst galaxies) or activity in the core (in
active galaxies).
Our own galaxy,the
Milky Way, sometimes simply called
the Galaxy (with uppercase), is a large disk-shaped
barred spiral galaxy about
30 kiloparsecs or 100,000
light years in diameter and 3,000 light years in thickness. It contains about 3×10
11 (three hundred billion) stars and has a total mass of about 6×10
11 (six hundred billion) times the
mass of the Sun.
In spiral galaxies, the spiral arms have the shape of approximate
logarithmic spirals, a pattern that can be theoretically shown to result from a disturbance in a uniformly rotating mass of stars. Like the stars, the spiral arms also rotate around the center, but they do so with constant
angular velocity. That means that stars pass in and out of spiral arms. The spiral arms are thought to be areas of high density or density waves. As stars move into an arm, they slow down, thus creating a higher density; this is akin to a "wave" of slowdowns moving along a highway full of moving cars. The arms are visible because the high density facilitates star formation and they therefore harbor many bright and young stars.
Despite the prominence of large elliptical and spiral galaxies, most galaxies in the universe appear to be
dwarf galaxies. These tiny galaxies are about 100 times smaller than the Milky Way, containing only a few billion stars. Many dwarf galaxies may orbit a single larger galaxy; the Milky Way has at least a dozen such satellites. Dwarf galaxies may also be classified as
elliptical,
spiral or
irregular. Since small dwarf ellipticals bear little resemblance to large ellipticals, they are often called
dwarf spheroidal galaxies instead.
Very few galaxies exist by themselves; these are known as
field galaxies. Most galaxies are gravitationally bound to a number of other galaxies. Structures containing up to about 50 galaxies are called
groups of galaxies, and larger structures containing many thousands of galaxies packed into an area a few
megaparsecs across are called
clusters. Clusters of galaxies are often dominated by a single giant
elliptical galaxy, which over time tidally destroys its satellite galaxies and adds their mass to its own.
Superclusters are giant collections containing tens of thousands of galaxies, found in clusters, groups and sometimes individually; at the
supercluster scale, galaxies are arranged into
sheets and
filaments surrounding vast empty
voids. Above this scale, the universe appears to be
isotropic and
homogeneous.
Our galaxy is a member of the
Local Group, which it dominates together with the
Andromeda Galaxy; overall the Local Group contains about 30 galaxies in a space about
one megaparsec across. The Local Group is part of the
Virgo Supercluster, which is dominated by the
Virgo Cluster (of which our Galaxy is not a member).
The method of galaxy formation is a major open question in astronomy. Theories may be divided into two categories: top-down and bottom-up. In top-down theories such as the Eggenâ€"Lynden-Bellâ€"Sandage (ELS) model,
protogalaxies form in a large-scale simultaneous collapse lasting about 100 million years.
[Eggen, O. J.; Lynden-Bell, D.; Sandage, A. R. Evidence from the motions of old stars that the Galaxy collapsed. Astrophysical Journal, vol. 136, p. 748, 1962] In bottom-up theories such as the Searle-Zinn (SZ) model,
globular clusters form first, and then a number of such bodies accrete to form a larger galaxy. Modern theories must be modified to account for the probable presence of large
dark matter halos. A sketch of a galaxy formation model follows.
Shortly after recombination,
baryonic matter begins to condense around cold dark matter halos. Zero-
metal high-velocity
halo stars (called
Population III stars) are the first to develop around a protogalaxy as it starts to contract. These huge stars quickly
supernova, releasing heavy elements into the
interstellar medium. Within the next billion years,
globular clusters, the central
supermassive black hole and
galactic bulge of metal-poor
Population II stars form. Within two billion years, the remaining material settles into a
galactic disk. The galaxy will continue to absorb infalling material from
high velocity clouds and
dwarf galaxies throughout its life; the cycle of stellar birth and death will increase the abundance of heavy elements, eventually allowing the formation of
planets.
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Galaxy Abell 1835 IR1916 is seen as a tiny dot in this photo of distant galaxies. Image courtesy of ESO. |
The oldest galaxy yet found was discovered in 2004 by scientists at
Caltech using the
Hubble Space Telescope and the
Keck telescopes.
[Kneib, J.-P., Ellis, R.S., Santos, M.R., Richard, J., 2004, A probable z~7 galaxy strongly lensed by the roch cluster A2218: exploring the dark age, The Astrophysical Journal, volume 607, part 1 (2004), pages 697â€"703] This protogalaxy, imaged when the universe was about 750 million years old, contains only about 1 million stars. It is visible from this vast distance thanks to
gravitational lensing due to the
Abell 2218 cluster. The great mass of this galaxy cluster bends and focuses the light passing through it, acting as a natural lens in space. (See [
1].) This galaxy was displaced by galaxy
Abell 1835 IR1916 as the most distant galaxy ever seen by humans.
The existence of such old protogalaxies suggests that they must have grown in the so-called "Dark Ages" (before the first generation of stars) from
anisotropic irregularities present during the era of
recombination, some 300,000 years after the
Big Bang. Such irregularities of the right scale were observed using the
Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) in 2003.
More evidence for this model of galaxy formation comes from detection of ancient
Population III stars. The giant star,
HE0107-5240, discovered in 2002 by researchers at the
University of Hamburg, is believed to be the oldest yet discovered star in the Milky Way, since unlike younger stars, it is virtually metal-free. (See [
2].) Since then, other very old stars (like HE 1327) have also been found.
Studies show that the
Milky Way Galaxy is moving towards the nearby
Andromeda Galaxy at about 130 km/s, and depending upon the lateral movements, the two may collide in about 5â€"6 billion years. Such galaxy collisions are fairly common, especially in dense
galaxy clusters. Given the distances between the stars, the great majority of star systems in colliding galaxies will be unaffected. However, gravitational stripping of the
interstellar gas and dust that makes up the spiral arms will produce a long train of stars, similar to that seen in NGC 250 or the
Antennae Galaxies.
Although the Milky Way has never collided with a galaxy as large as Andromeda before, evidence of past collisions of the Milky Way with smaller
dwarf galaxies is increasing.
Spiral galaxies, like the Milky Way, only produce new generations of stars as long as they continue to have dense
molecular clouds of interstellar
hydrogen in their spiral arms.
Elliptical galaxies are already largely devoid of this gas and so form no new stars. However, the supply of star-forming material is finite; as stars convert hydrogen into heavier elements, fewer stars will form.
After the end of star formation in under 100 billion years, the "stellar age" will come to an end after about 10 trillion to 100 trillion years (10
13â€"10
14 years), as the smallest longest-lived stars in the universe, tiny
red dwarfs begin to fade. At the end of the stellar age galaxies will comprise
compact objects:
brown dwarfs,
black dwarfs, cooling
white dwarfs,
neutron stars, and
black holes. Eventually, as a result of
gravitational relaxation, all stars will either fall into the central
supermassive black hole of the galaxies, or be flung into the depths of intergalactic space as a result of collisions.
The word
galaxy derives from the
Greek term for our own galaxy,
galaxias (
γαλαξίας) or
kyklos galaktikos meaning "milky circle" for the system's appearance in the sky. In
Greek mythology,
Zeus placed his son by a mortal woman, the infant
Hercules, on
Hera's breast as she was asleep, so that the baby would drink her divine milk and thus become immortal. Hera woke up while breastfeeding, and realized that she was nursing an unknown baby: she pushed the baby away and a jet of her milk sprayed the night sky.
When astronomers speculated that certain objects previously classified as spiral nebulae were actually vast congeries of stars, this was called the "
island universe theory"; but this was an obvious misnomer, since
universe means everything there is. Consequently, this term fell into disuse, replaced by applying the term galaxy generically to all such bodies.
This account of the history of the investigation of our own and other galaxies is largely taken from James Binney and Michael Merrifield: Galactic astronomy.
[James Binney and Michael Merrifield: Galactic astronomy, Princeton University Press, 1998]In 1610,
Galileo Galilei used a telescope to study the bright band on the night sky known as the
Milky Way and discovered that it was composed of a huge number of faint stars. In a treatise in 1755,
Immanuel Kant, drawing on earlier work by
Thomas Wright, speculated (correctly) that the Galaxy might be a rotating body of a huge number of stars, held together by
gravitational forces akin to the
solar system but on much larger scales. The resulting disk of stars would be seen as a band on the sky from our perspective inside the disk. Kant also conjectured that some of the
nebulae visible in the night sky might be separate galaxies.
Towards the end of the 18th century,
Charles Messier compiled a
catalog containing the 109 brightest nebulae, later followed by a larger catalog of 5000 nebulae assembled by
William Herschel. In 1845,
Lord Rosse constructed a new
telescope and was able to distinguish between elliptical and spiral nebulae. He also managed to make out individual point sources in some of these nebulae, lending credence to Kant's earlier conjecture. However, the nebulae were not universally accepted as distant separate galaxies until the matter was settled by
Edwin Hubble in the early 1920s using a new telescope. He was able to resolve the outer parts of some spiral nebulae as collections of individual stars and identified some
Cepheid variables, thus allowing him to estimate the distance to the nebulae: they were far too distant to be part of the Milky Way. In 1936, Hubble produced a classification system for galaxies that is used to this day, the
Hubble sequence.
The first attempt to describe the shape of the Milky Way and the position of the Sun within it was carried out by
William Herschel in 1785 by carefully counting the number of stars in different regions of the sky. Using a refined approach,
Kapteyn in 1920 arrived at the picture of a small (diameter ~15 kiloparsecs) ellipsoid galaxy with the Sun close to the center. A different method by
Harlow Shapley based on the cataloging of
globular clusters lead to a radically different picture: a flat disk with diameter ~70 kiloparsecs and the Sun far from the center. Both analyses failed to take into account the
absorption of light by interstellar dust present in the
galactic plane; once
Robert Julius Trumpler had quantified this effect in 1930 by studying
open clusters, the present picture of our galaxy as described above emerged.
In 1944,
Hendrik van de Hulst predicted
microwave radiation at a
wavelength of 21 cm, resulting from interstellar atomic
hydrogen gas; this radiation was observed in 1951. This radiation allowed for much improved study of the Galaxy, since it is not affected by dust absorption and its
doppler shift can be used to map the motion of the gas in the Galaxy. These observations led to the postulation of a rotating
bar structure in the center of the Galaxy. With improved radio telescopes, hydrogen gas could also be traced in other galaxies. In the 1970s it was discovered in
Vera Rubin's study of the
rotation speed of gas in galaxies that the total visible mass (from stars and gas) does not properly account for the speed of the rotating gas. This
galaxy rotation problem is thought to be explained by the presence of large quantities of unseen
dark matter.
Beginning in the 1990s, the
Hubble Space Telescope yielded improved observations. Among other things, it established that the missing dark matter in our galaxy cannot solely consist of inherently faint and small stars. The
Hubble Deep Field, an extremely long exposure of a relatively empty part of the sky, provided evidence that there are about 125 billion galaxies in the universe. Improved technology in detecting the non-visible spectrum (
radio telescopes,
infrared cameras,
x-ray telescopes), allow detection of other galaxies that are not detected by Hubble. Particularly, galaxy surveys in the
zone of avoidance (the region of the sky blocked by the Milky Way) have revealed a number of new galaxies.
Life as we know it is currently assumed to exist only around single, third-generation
G-type stars in the middle regions of the spiral arms of
spiral galaxies, like the
sun.
Elliptical galaxies, produced as a result of many
galactic collisions, quickly lose their clouds of
interstellar hydrogen gas, and cannot make new generations of stars.
Irregular galaxies have few elderly stars and thus seem to have low concentrations of the heavier elements on which life depends. Even within spiral galaxies life as we know it would appear to be limited to the middle reaches of the spiral arm, as in the
galactic halo or outer spiral arms heavier elements are in short supply, whilst in the gas clouds around the galactic centre heavier elements are in concentrations too high, and inter-stellar interactions are too frequent to allow earth-sized planets to form in stable circular orbits around their stars.
*
Active galaxy*
Barred spiral galaxy*
Dwarf galaxy*
Dwarf elliptical galaxy*
Dwarf spheroidal galaxy*
Elliptical galaxy*
Galaxy classification*
Galaxy formation and evolution*
Groups and clusters of galaxies*
Irregular galaxy*
Lenticular galaxy*
List of galaxies*
List of nearest galaxies*
Radio galaxy*
Ring galaxy*
Spiral galaxy*
Starburst galaxy*
Seyfert galaxy*
Timeline of galaxies, clusters of galaxies, and large scale structure* Terence Dickinson:
The Universe and Beyond (Fourth Edition), Firefly Books Ltd. 2004, 2004
*
Galaxies, SEDS Messier pages*
An Atlas of The Universe*
Galaxies - Information and amateur observations*
The Oldest Galaxy Yet Found*
The Oldest Star found in the Galaxy*
Galaxies - discussed on BBC Radio 4's "In Our Time" programme
