Astrophysics (Index)About

spiral galaxy

(flat galaxy with spiraling arms)

A spiral galaxy is a disk galaxy that has spiral arms, one of three galaxy classes described by Edwin Hubble along with elliptical galaxies and lenticular galaxies. The galaxy classification designations for spiral galaxies are SA or SB (or SAB for something between) followed by a letter, a, b, c or d, indicating how tight are the arms, a for tightest. SB is for barred, i.e., a barred galaxy, a spiral galaxy whose center appears like a bar between two opposing arms rather than just a circular mass of stars. Spiral galaxies are generally younger than elliptical galaxies with more interstellar gas and dust, and are generally forming stars. There is a correlation between color and spiral/disk versus elliptical: that flat galaxies tend to be blue, indicating early stars and star formation, and elliptical galaxies tend to be red. However red spiral galaxies do exist.

The dynamics that produces the galaxy's spiral structure (spiral galaxy formation, the development of the spiral arms) is not immediately apparent: if the arm structure simply consisted of the position of the stars as they orbit around the galaxy, the inner stars would get around quicker than the outer stars, making the arms wrap tighter with time, and there would be more tightly-wrapped galaxies than are seen in surveys (the winding problem). A classic theory presumes spiral density waves of higher-density interstellar medium that feed visible spiral waves of star formation. Many of the created stars will be bright but very-short-lived, so a traveling line of star formation will show as a line of brightness, a spiral arm. Some N-body simulations of galaxies have produced spiral structures, but under varying assumptions, leaving open the question of which presumed characteristic is the real cause.

The stars' orbits are not simple circles, and probably not ellipses, and efforts to characterize the orbits in a useful way include breaking each into an epicyclic frequency (toward and away from the center) and vertical oscillation frequency (up and down from the plane).

Example spiral galaxies:

The Magellanic Clouds have been considered irregular but are now generally cited as single-armed spiral galaxies, termed Magellanic spiral galaxies. An anemic galaxy is a spiral galaxy where the spirals and the portions between them show less contrast, i.e., much like lenticular galaxies yet with a visible spiral pattern. A flocculent spiral galaxy is one where the spiral arms are not continuous, but patches of brightness. The Triangulum galaxy (M33) is an example.


(galaxy type)
Further reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_galaxy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_spiral_galaxy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anemic_galaxy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flocculent_spiral_galaxy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellanic_spiral
https://astronomy.swin.edu.au/cosmos/S/spiral+galaxy
https://universe.nasa.gov/galaxies/types/
https://cas.sdss.org/dr6/en/proj/basic/galaxies/spirals.asp
https://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/pdf/1964ApJ...140..646L

Referenced by pages:
alpha-enhanced
Andromeda (M31)
AREPO
bar
Bautz-Morgan classification
Comet Galaxy (PGC 3234374)
corotation resonance
cosmic distance ladder
disk galaxy
dwarf galaxy
dwarf galaxy classification
elliptical galaxy
ESO 137-001
final parsec problem
Freeman's law
galactic bulge
galaxy
galaxy classification
galaxy formation
galaxy main sequence
galaxy merger
Galaxy Zoo
grand design spiral galaxy
HII region (HII)
Hydrogen Accretion in Local Galaxies Survey (HALOGAS)
hypergalaxy
IC 342
inside-out growth
irregular galaxy
Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC)
lenticular galaxy (S0)
Lindblad resonance
Lynden-Bell mechanism
M64
Magellanic Clouds (MC)
Messier 100 (M100)
Messier 106 (M106)
Messier 74 (M74)
Messier 77 (M77)
metallicity gradient
Milky Way (MW)
Morgan classification
morphology-density relation
NGC 253
NGC 2770
NGC 3314
NGC 6946
NGC 7331
NGC 7469
PAWS
peculiar galaxy (p)
Pinwheel Galaxy (M101)
pseudobulge
radial mixing
satellite galaxy
satellite plane problem
shell galaxy
Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC)
Sombrero Galaxy (M104)
Spindle Galaxy (NGC 5866)
spiral arm
spiral density wave
standard candle
stellar dynamics
synthetic field method (SFM)
Triangulum Galaxy (M33)
Tully-Fisher relation (TFR)
van den Bergh galaxy classification
warp
Whirlpool Galaxy (M51a)
WHISP

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