Barred irregular galaxy - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

A barred irregular galaxy is an irregular

Irregular galaxy

An irregular galaxy is a galaxy that does not have a distinct regular shape, like a spiral or an elliptical galaxy. The shape of an irregular galaxy is uncommon – they do not fall into any of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence, and they are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a...

version of a barred spiral galaxy

Barred spiral galaxy

A barred spiral galaxy is a spiral galaxy with a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars. Bars are found in approximately two-thirds of all spiral galaxies...

. Examples include the Large Magellanic Cloud

Large Magellanic Cloud

The Large Magellanic Cloud is a nearby irregular galaxy, and is a satellite of the Milky Way. At a distance of slightly less than 50 kiloparsecs , the LMC is the third closest galaxy to the Milky Way, with the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal and Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy lying closer to the center...

and NGC 6822

NGC 6822

NGC 6822 is a barred irregular galaxy approximately 1.6 million light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Part of the Local Group of galaxies, it was discovered by E. E. Barnard in 1881 , with a six-inch refractor telescope. It is one of the closer galaxies to the Milky Way...

. Some barred irregular galaxies (like the Large Magellanic Cloud) may actually be dwarf spiral galaxies, which have been distorted into an irregular shape by tidal interactions

Galactic tide

A galactic tide is a tidal force experienced by objects subject to the gravitational field of a galaxy such as the Milky Way. Particular areas of interest concerning galactic tides include galactic collisions, the disruption of dwarf or satellite galaxies, and the Milky Way's tidal effect on the...

with a more massive neighbor.

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