While spiral galaxies are bright, elliptical galaxies are dim . Spiral galaxies are hotbeds of star formation, but elliptical galaxies aren’t nearly as prolific because they contain less gas and dust, which means fewer new (and brighter) stars are born.
What’s the difference between spiral and elliptical?
Spiral galaxies have a central bulge of stars surrounded by a disk that contains arms, which form a spiral structure. ... Elliptical galaxies don ‘t show any structure, but have a smooth ellipsoidal shape, appearing as a large spherical or elliptical ball of stars.
Which of the following is a major difference between elliptical galaxies and spiral galaxies?
The major difference between spiral and elliptical galaxies is that elliptical galaxies lack a significant disk component , although both types have the halo component. ... Like the halos of spiral galaxies, elliptical galaxies lack cool gas and so do not have much star formation.
Which of the following is not a difference between spiral and elliptical galaxies?
Which of the following is NOT a difference between spiral and elliptical galaxies?” Your answer : Spiral galaxies are younger , whereas elliptical galaxies are older. ... While spiral galaxies contain younger stars, they also contain older stars.
What is the major difference between an irregular galaxy and a spiral galaxy?
An irregular galaxy is a galaxy that does not have a distinct regular shape , unlike a spiral or an elliptical galaxy. Irregular galaxies do not fall into any of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence, and they are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a nuclear bulge nor any trace of spiral arm structure.
What are 3 characteristics of elliptical galaxies?
There are four distinguishing characteristics of the ellipticals: (a) they have much more random star motion than orderly rotational motion (star orbits are aligned in a wide range of angles and have a wide range of eccentricities); (b) they have very little dust and gas left between the stars; (c) this means that they ...
What are the characteristics of a spiral galaxy?
Most spiral galaxies contain a central bulge surrounded by a flat, rotating disk of stars . The bulge in the center is made up of older, dimmer stars, and is thought to contain a supermassive black hole. Approximately two-thirds of spiral galaxies also contain a bar structure through their center, as does the Milky Way.
What is the major difference between an elliptical galaxy and a spiral galaxy quizlet?
The major difference between spiral and elliptical galaxies is that elliptical galaxies lack a significant disk component , although both types have the halo component.
Does an elliptical galaxy rotate like a spiral galaxy explain?
Does an elliptical galaxy rotate like a spiral galaxy? ... No, so we can’t determine a rotational velocity . If we can measure the various speeds with which the stars are moving in their orbits around the center of the galaxy, we can calculate how much mass the galaxy must contain in order to hold the stars within it.
What causes spiral galaxies?
Astronomers believe that galaxies have spiral arms because galaxies rotate – or spin around a central axis – and because of something called “density waves.” ... A spiral galaxy’s rotation, or spin, bends the waves into spirals. Stars pass through the wave as they orbit the galaxy center.
How old are the stars in a spiral galaxy?
Using observations from Chile’s Gemini South telescope and archival Hubble Space Telescope data, the researchers calculated the age of the stars to be roughly 12.8 billion years old — making them some of the oldest stars ever detected in either the Milky Way or the universe at large.
Is the Milky Way a spiral galaxy?
The Milky Way is a huge collection of stars, dust and gas. It’s called a spiral galaxy because if you could view it from the top or bottom, it would look like a spinning pinwheel. The Sun is located on one of the spiral arms, about 25,000 light-years away from the center of the galaxy.
What is the largest type of galaxy?
The biggest known galaxy is IC 1101 , which is 50 times the Milky Way’s size and about 2,000 times more massive. It is about 5.5 million light-years across. Nebulas, or vast clouds of gas, also have impressively large sizes.
What are the 4 types of galaxy?
Galaxies 101
The smallest of galaxies contain a “mere” few hundred million stars while the largest galaxies contain up to one hundred trillion stars! Scientists have been able to segment galaxies into 4 main types: spiral, elliptical, peculiar, and irregular .
What are 3 galaxy types?
What Kinds of Galaxies Are There? Astronomers classify galaxies into three major categories: elliptical, spiral and irregular . These galaxies span a wide range of sizes, from dwarf galaxies containing as few as 100 million stars to giant galaxies with more than a trillion stars.
What type of galaxy do we live in?
We live in one of the arms of a large spiral galaxy called the Milky Way . The Sun and its planets (including Earth) lie in this quiet part of the galaxy, about half way out from the centre. 100 000 years to cross from one side to the other.
