Table of Contents
What type of galaxies is the Milky Way?
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 a galaxy and what are the different types of galaxies?
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 are the 4 types of galaxies which type is the Milky Way?
Key Facts & Summary
- There are four main categories of galaxies: elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, and irregular.
- The most common type of galaxy found throughout the universe is the spiral galaxy.
- Around two-thirds of all spiral galaxies have a bar-like structure – thus they are classified as barred spiral galaxies.
What type of galaxy is the Milky Way and Andromeda?
elliptical galaxy
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are expected to collide in around 4-5 billion years, merging to form a giant elliptical galaxy or a large lenticular galaxy….
| Andromeda Galaxy | |
|---|---|
| Type | SA(s)b |
| Mass | (1.5±0.5)×1012 M ☉ |
| Number of stars | ~1 trillion (1012) |
| Size | ~220 kly (67 kpc) (diameter) |
Why are there different types of galaxies?
Explanation: The galaxies that have been undisturbed for billions of years are likely to form spiral, disk shaped galaxies. Smaller galaxies gravitationally attract each other and merge into an elliptical shape. So the galaxy seems irregular in shape in between a merging process.
How many types galaxies are there?
Galaxies are classified by shape. There are three general types: elliptical, spiral, and irregular. Perhaps the most familiar kind of galaxy are spiral galaxies. They have a distinctive shape with spiral arms in a relatively flat disk and a central “bulge”.
How are different types of galaxies formed?
Galaxies are composed of stars, dust and dark matter, all held together by gravity. Astronomers aren’t certain exactly how galaxies formed. Some astronomers think that gravity pulled dust and gas together to form individual stars, and those stars drew closer together into collections that ultimately became galaxies.
How is Milky Way galaxy shaped?
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy comprised of a bar-shaped core region surrounded by a flat disk of gas, dust and stars about 120,000 light-years wide. Our solar system is located about 27,000 light-years from the galactic center within one of the disk’s four spiral arms.
What are the four names of the galaxies?
There are four types of galaxies: elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, and irregular. Most galaxies are between 1 to 100 parsecs away and 3 to 300 light-years in diameter. Once estimated at 200 billion, the number of known galaxies is now believed to be 2 trillion.
What are the types or categories for galaxies?
The different types of galaxies not only appear different, but have different evolutionary histories as well. The three fundamental classes of galaxies are elliptical, spiral, and irregular. These categories are further broken down into subclasses, often illustrated using a Hubble tuning fork diagram.
What kinds of galaxies there are in the universe?
– There are four types of galaxies: elliptical, spiral, barred spiral, and irregular. – Most galaxies are between 1 to 100 parsecs away and 3 to 300 light-years in diameter. – Once estimated at 200 billion, the number of known galaxies is now believed to be 2 trillion.
What type of galaxies have the youngest stars?
Spiral galaxies have lots of gas and dust and lots of young stars.Other galaxies are egg-shaped and called elliptical galaxy. The smallest elliptical galaxies are as small as some globular clusters. Giant elliptical galaxies, on the other hand, can contain over a trillion stars.