Galaxy formation and evolution
Encyclopedia
The study of galaxy formation and evolution is concerned with the processes that formed a heterogeneous universe from a homogeneous beginning, the formation of the first galaxies, the way galaxies change over time, and the processes that have generated the variety of structures observed in nearby galaxies. It is one of the most active research areas in astrophysics
.
Galaxy
formation is hypothesized to occur, from structure formation
theories, as a result of tiny quantum fluctuation
s in the aftermath of the Big Bang
. The simplest model for this that is in general agreement with observed phenomena is the
Cold Dark Matter cosmology
; that is to say that clustering and merging is how galaxies gain in mass, and can also determine their shape and structure.
, the universe
, for a time, was remarkably homogeneous
, as can be observed in the Cosmic Microwave Background or CMB (the fluctuations of which are less than one part in one hundred thousand). There was little-to-no structure in the universe, and thus no galaxies. Therefore we must ask how the smoothly distributed universe of the CMB became the clumpy universe we see today.
The most accepted theory of how these structures came to be is that all the large-scale structure of the cosmos we observe today was formed
as a consequence of the growth of the primordial fluctuations
, which are small changes in the density of the universe in a confined region. As the universe cooled clumps of dark matter
began to condense, and within them gas began to condense. The primordial fluctuations gravitationally attracted gas and dark matter to the denser areas, and thus the seeds that would later become galaxies were formed. These structures constituted the first galaxies. At this point the universe was almost exclusively composed of hydrogen, helium, and dark matter. Soon after the first proto-galaxies formed, the hydrogen and helium gas within them began to condense and make the first stars. Thus the first galaxies were then formed. In 2007 the Keck telescope, a team from California Institute of Technology
found six star forming galaxies about 13.2 billion light years (light travel distance
) away and therefore created when the universe was only 500 million years old. The discovery of a galaxy more than 13 billion years old, was reported in January 2011 which existed only 480 million years after the Big Bang.
The universe was very violent in its early epochs, and galaxies grew quickly, evolving by accretion of smaller mass galaxies. The result of this process is left imprinted on the distribution of galaxies in the nearby universe (see image of 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
). Galaxies are not isolated objects in space, but rather galaxies in the universe are distributed in a great cosmic web of filaments. The locations where the filaments meet are dense clusters of galaxies
, that began as the small fluctuations to the universe. Hence the distribution of galaxies is closely related to the physics of the early universe.
Despite its many successes, this picture is not sufficient to explain the variety of structure we see in galaxies. Galaxies come in a variety of shapes, from round featureless elliptical galaxies to the pancake-flat spiral galaxies.
Some notable observed features of galaxy
structure (including our own Milky Way
) that astronomers wish to explain with galactic formation theories include (but are certainly not limited to) the following:
The key properties of disk galaxies
, which are also commonly called spiral galaxies, is that they are very thin, rotate rapidly, and often show spiral structure. One of the main challenges to galaxy formation is the great number of thin disk galaxies in the local universe. The problem is that disks are very fragile, and mergers with other galaxies can quickly destroy thin disks.
Olin Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell
, and Allan Sandage
in 1962, proposed a theory that disk galaxies form through a monolithic collapse of a large gas cloud. As the cloud collapses the gas settles into a rapidly rotating disk. Known as a top-down formation scenario, this theory is quite simple yet no longer widely accepted because observations of the early universe strongly suggest that objects grow from bottom-up (i.e. smaller objects merging to form larger ones). It was first proposed by Leonard Searle
and Robert Zinn that galaxies form by the coalescence of smaller progenitors.
More recent theories include the clustering of dark matter halos in the bottom-up process. Essentially early on in the universe galaxies were composed mostly of gas and dark matter, and thus, there were fewer stars. As a galaxy gained mass (by accreting smaller galaxies) the dark matter stays mostly on the outer parts of the galaxy. This is because the dark matter can only interact gravitationally, and thus will not dissipate. The gas, however, can quickly contract, and as it does so it rotates faster, until the final result is a very thin, very rapidly rotating disk.
Astronomers do not currently know what process stops the contraction. In fact, theories of disk galaxy formation are not successful at producing the rotation speed and size of disk galaxies. It has been suggested that the radiation from bright newly formed stars, or from an active galactic nuclei can slow the contraction of a forming disk. It has also been suggested that the dark matter
halo can pull the galaxy, thus stopping disk contraction.
In recent years, a great deal of focus has been put on understanding merger events in the evolution of galaxies. Our own galaxy (the Milky Way
) has a tiny satellite
galaxy (the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy
) which is currently gradually being ripped up and "eaten" by the Milky Way
. It is thought these kinds of events may be quite common in the evolution of large galaxies. The Sagittarius dwarf galaxy is orbiting our galaxy at almost a right angle to the disk. It is currently passing through the disk; stars are being stripped off of it with each pass and joining the halo of our galaxy. There are other examples of these minor accretion events, and it is likely a continual process for many galaxies. Such mergers provide "new" gas, stars, and dark matter to galaxies. Evidence for this process is often observable as warps or streams coming out of galaxies.
The Lambda-CDM model
of galaxy formation underestimates the number of thin disk galaxies in the universe. The reason is that these galaxy formation models predict a large number of mergers. If disk galaxies merge with another galaxy of comparable mass (at least 15 percent of its mass) the merger will likely destroy, or at a minimum greatly disrupt the disk, yet the resulting galaxy is not expected to be a disk galaxy. While this remains an unsolved problem for astronomers, it does not necessarily mean that the Lambda-CDM model
is completely wrong, but rather that it requires further refinement to accurately reproduce the population of galaxies in the universe.
The most massive galaxies in the sky are giant elliptical galaxies
. Their stars are on orbits that are randomly oriented within the galaxy (i.e. they are not rotating like disk galaxies). They are composed of old stars and have little to no dust. All elliptical galaxies probed so far have supermassive black hole
s in their center, and the mass of these black holes is correlated with the mass of the elliptical galaxy. They are also correlated to a property called sigma
which is the speed of the stars at the far edge of the elliptical galaxies. Elliptical galaxies do not have disks around them, although some bulges
of disk galaxies look similar to elliptical galaxies. One is more likely to find elliptical galaxies in more crowded regions of the universe (such as galaxy clusters).
Astronomers now see elliptical galaxies as some of the most evolved systems in the universe. It is widely accepted that the main driving force for the evolution of elliptical galaxies is mergers of smaller galaxies. These mergers can be extremely violent; galaxies often collide at speeds of 500 kilometers per second.
Many galaxies in the universe are gravitationally bound to other galaxies, that is to say they will never escape the pull of the other galaxy. If the galaxies are of similar size, the resultant galaxy will appear similar to neither of the two galaxies merging. An image of an ongoing merger of equal sized disk galaxies is shown left. During the merger, stars and dark matter in each galaxy become affected by the approaching galaxy. Toward the late stages of the merger, the gravitational potential
, the shape of galaxy, begins changing so quickly that star orbits are greatly affected, and lose any memory of their previous orbit. This process is called violent relaxation. Thus if two disk galaxies collide, they begin with their stars in an orderly rotation in the plane of the disk. During the merger, the ordered motion is transformed into random energy. And the resultant galaxy is dominated by stars that orbit the galaxy in a complex, and random, web of orbits. And this is what we see in elliptical galaxies, stars on random unordered orbits.
Mergers are also locations of extreme amounts of star formation
. During a merger some galaxies can make thousands of solar masses of new stars each year, which is large compared to our galaxy which makes about 10 new stars each year. Though stars almost never get close enough to actually collide in galaxy mergers, giant molecular clouds rapidly fall to the center of the galaxy where they collide with other molecular clouds. These collisions then induce condensations of these clouds into new stars. We can see this phenomenon in merging galaxies in the nearby universe. Yet, this process was more pronounced during the mergers that formed most elliptical galaxies we see today, which likely occurred 1-10 billion years ago, when there was much more gas (and thus more molecular clouds) in galaxies. Also, away from the center of the galaxy gas clouds will run into each other producing shocks which stimulate the formation of new stars in gas clouds. The result of all this violence is that galaxies tend to have little gas available to form new stars after they merge. Thus if a galaxy is involved in a major merger, and then a few billion years pass, the galaxy will have very few young stars (see Stellar evolution
) left. This is what we see in today's elliptical galaxies, very little molecular gas and very few young stars. It is thought that this is because elliptical galaxies are the end products of major mergers which use up the majority of gas during the merger, and thus further star formation after the merger is quenched.
In the Local Group
, the Milky Way and M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy
) are gravitationally bound, and currently approaching each other at high speed. If the two galaxies do meet they will pass through each other, with gravity distorting both galaxies severely and ejecting some gas, dust and stars into intergalactic space. They will travel apart, slow down, and then again be drawn towards each other, and again collide. Eventually both galaxies will have merged completely, streams of gas and dust will be flying through the space near the newly formed giant elliptical galaxy. M31 is actually already distorted: the edges are warped. This is probably because of interactions with its own galactic companions, as well as possible mergers with dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the recent past - the remnants of which are still visible in the disk populations.
In our epoch, large concentrations of galaxies (clusters and supercluster
s) are still assembling.
While scientists have learned a great deal about ours and other galaxies, the most fundamental questions about formation and evolution remain only tentatively answered.
Astrophysics
Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...
.
Galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
formation is hypothesized to occur, from structure formation
Structure formation
Structure formation refers to a fundamental problem in physical cosmology. The universe, as is now known from observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation, began in a hot, dense, nearly uniform state approximately 13.7 Gyr ago...
theories, as a result of tiny quantum fluctuation
Quantum fluctuation
In quantum physics, a quantum fluctuation is the temporary change in the amount of energy in a point in space, arising from Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.According to one formulation of the principle,energy and time can be related by the relation...
s in the aftermath of the Big Bang
Big Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
. The simplest model for this that is in general agreement with observed phenomena is the
Cold Dark Matter cosmologyLambda-CDM model
ΛCDM or Lambda-CDM is an abbreviation for Lambda-Cold Dark Matter, which is also known as the cold dark matter model with dark energy...
; that is to say that clustering and merging is how galaxies gain in mass, and can also determine their shape and structure.
Formation of the first galaxies
After the Big BangBig Bang
The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model that explains the early development of the Universe. According to the Big Bang theory, the Universe was once in an extremely hot and dense state which expanded rapidly. This rapid expansion caused the young Universe to cool and resulted in...
, the universe
Universe
The Universe is commonly defined as the totality of everything that exists, including all matter and energy, the planets, stars, galaxies, and the contents of intergalactic space. Definitions and usage vary and similar terms include the cosmos, the world and nature...
, for a time, was remarkably homogeneous
Homogeneity (physics)
In general, homogeneity is defined as the quality or state of being homogeneous . For instance, a uniform electric field would be compatible with homogeneity...
, as can be observed in the Cosmic Microwave Background or CMB (the fluctuations of which are less than one part in one hundred thousand). There was little-to-no structure in the universe, and thus no galaxies. Therefore we must ask how the smoothly distributed universe of the CMB became the clumpy universe we see today.
The most accepted theory of how these structures came to be is that all the large-scale structure of the cosmos we observe today was formed
Structure formation
Structure formation refers to a fundamental problem in physical cosmology. The universe, as is now known from observations of the cosmic microwave background radiation, began in a hot, dense, nearly uniform state approximately 13.7 Gyr ago...
as a consequence of the growth of the primordial fluctuations
Primordial fluctuations
Primordial fluctuations are density variations in the early universe which are considered the seeds of all structure in the universe. Currently, the most widely accepted explanation for their origin is in the context of cosmic inflation...
, which are small changes in the density of the universe in a confined region. As the universe cooled clumps of dark matter
Dark matter
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
began to condense, and within them gas began to condense. The primordial fluctuations gravitationally attracted gas and dark matter to the denser areas, and thus the seeds that would later become galaxies were formed. These structures constituted the first galaxies. At this point the universe was almost exclusively composed of hydrogen, helium, and dark matter. Soon after the first proto-galaxies formed, the hydrogen and helium gas within them began to condense and make the first stars. Thus the first galaxies were then formed. In 2007 the Keck telescope, a team from California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
found six star forming galaxies about 13.2 billion light years (light travel distance
Distance measures (cosmology)
Distance measures are used in physical cosmology to give a natural notion of the distance between two objects or events in the universe. They are often used to tie some observable quantity to another quantity that is not directly...
) away and therefore created when the universe was only 500 million years old. The discovery of a galaxy more than 13 billion years old, was reported in January 2011 which existed only 480 million years after the Big Bang.
The universe was very violent in its early epochs, and galaxies grew quickly, evolving by accretion of smaller mass galaxies. The result of this process is left imprinted on the distribution of galaxies in the nearby universe (see image of 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey
In astronomy, the 2dF Galaxy Redshift Survey , 2dF or 2dFGRS is a redshift survey conducted by the Anglo-Australian Observatory with the 3.9m Anglo-Australian Telescope between 1997 and 11 April 2002. The data from this survey were made public on 30 June 2003...
). Galaxies are not isolated objects in space, but rather galaxies in the universe are distributed in a great cosmic web of filaments. The locations where the filaments meet are dense clusters of galaxies
Galaxy cluster
A galaxy cluster is a compact cluster of galaxies. Basic difference between a galaxy group and a galaxy cluster is that there are many more galaxies in a cluster than in a group. Also, galaxies in a cluster are more compact and have higher velocity dispersion. One of the key features of cluster is...
, that began as the small fluctuations to the universe. Hence the distribution of galaxies is closely related to the physics of the early universe.
Despite its many successes, this picture is not sufficient to explain the variety of structure we see in galaxies. Galaxies come in a variety of shapes, from round featureless elliptical galaxies to the pancake-flat spiral galaxies.
Commonly observed properties of galaxies
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
structure (including our own Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
) that astronomers wish to explain with galactic formation theories include (but are certainly not limited to) the following:
- Spiral galaxies and the Galactic diskGalactic planeThe galactic plane is the plane in which the majority of a disk-shaped galaxy's mass lies. The directions perpendicular to the galactic plane point to the galactic poles...
are quite thin, dense, and rotate very fast. The Milky Way disk is 100 times longer than it is thick. - The majority of mass in galaxies is made up of dark matterDark matterIn astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
, a substance which is not directly observable, and does not interact through any means except gravity. - Halo starStarA star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...
s are typically much older and have much lower metallicitiesMetallicityIn astronomy and physical cosmology, the metallicity of an object is the proportion of its matter made up of chemical elements other than hydrogen and helium...
(that is to say they are almost exclusively composed of hydrogenHydrogenHydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
and heliumHeliumHelium is the chemical element with atomic number 2 and an atomic weight of 4.002602, which is represented by the symbol He. It is a colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic, inert, monatomic gas that heads the noble gas group in the periodic table...
) than disk stars. - Many disk galaxies have a puffed up outer disk (often called the "thick disk") that is composed of old stars.
- Globular clusterGlobular clusterA globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core as a satellite. Globular clusters are very tightly bound by gravity, which gives them their spherical shapes and relatively high stellar densities toward their centers. The name of this category of star cluster is...
s are typically old and metal-poor as well, but there are a few which are not nearly as metal-poor as most, and/or have some younger stars. Some stars in globular clusters appear to be as old as the universe itself (by entirely different measurement and analysis methods). - High Velocity Clouds, clouds of neutralElectric chargeElectric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two...
hydrogenHydrogenHydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
are "raining" down on the galaxy, and presumably have been from the beginning (these would be the necessary source of a gas disk from which the disk stars formed). - Galaxies come in a great variety of shapes and sizes (see the Hubble SequenceHubble sequenceThe Hubble sequence is a morphological classification scheme for galaxies invented by Edwin Hubble in 1926. It is often known colloquially as the Hubble tuning-fork diagram because of the shape in which it is traditionally represented....
) from giant featureless blobs of old stars (called elliptical galaxies) to thin disks with gas and stars arranged in highly ordered spirals. - The majority of giant galaxies contain a supermassive black holeSupermassive black holeA supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in a galaxy, in the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, and possibly all galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.Supermassive black holes have...
in their centers, ranging in mass from millions to billions of times the mass of our sunSunThe Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is almost perfectly spherical and consists of hot plasma interwoven with magnetic fields...
. The black hole mass is tied to properties of the galaxy that hosts it. - Many of the properties of galaxies (including the galaxy color-magnitude diagramGalaxy color-magnitude diagramThe Galaxy color-magnitude diagram shows the relationship between absolute magnitude, luminosity, and mass of galaxies. A preliminary description of the three areas of this diagram was made in 2003 by Eric F. Bell et al...
) indicate that there are fundamentally two types of galaxies. These groups divide into blue-star forming galaxies that are more like spiral types, and red-nonstar forming galaxies that are more like elliptical galaxies.
The formation of disk galaxies
Spiral galaxy
A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae and, as such, forms part of the Hubble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disk containing stars, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as...
, which are also commonly called spiral galaxies, is that they are very thin, rotate rapidly, and often show spiral structure. One of the main challenges to galaxy formation is the great number of thin disk galaxies in the local universe. The problem is that disks are very fragile, and mergers with other galaxies can quickly destroy thin disks.
Olin Eggen, Donald Lynden-Bell
Donald Lynden-Bell
Donald Lynden-Bell CBE FRS is an English astrophysicist, best known for his theories that galaxies contain massive black holes at their centre, and that such black holes are the principal source of energy in quasars. He was a co-recipient, with Maarten Schmidt, of the inaugural Kavli Prize for...
, and Allan Sandage
Allan Sandage
Allan Rex Sandage was an American astronomer. He was Staff Member Emeritus with the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California. He is best known for determining the first reasonably accurate value for the Hubble constant and the age of the universe.-Career:Sandage was one of the most...
in 1962, proposed a theory that disk galaxies form through a monolithic collapse of a large gas cloud. As the cloud collapses the gas settles into a rapidly rotating disk. Known as a top-down formation scenario, this theory is quite simple yet no longer widely accepted because observations of the early universe strongly suggest that objects grow from bottom-up (i.e. smaller objects merging to form larger ones). It was first proposed by Leonard Searle
Leonard Searle
Leonard Searle was an English-born American astronomer who worked on theories of the Big Bang. He was born in Mitcham, a suburb of London, and studied at St Andrews in Scotland and Princeton in New Jersey. After receiving his doctorate he started working at the University of Toronto in 1953,...
and Robert Zinn that galaxies form by the coalescence of smaller progenitors.
More recent theories include the clustering of dark matter halos in the bottom-up process. Essentially early on in the universe galaxies were composed mostly of gas and dark matter, and thus, there were fewer stars. As a galaxy gained mass (by accreting smaller galaxies) the dark matter stays mostly on the outer parts of the galaxy. This is because the dark matter can only interact gravitationally, and thus will not dissipate. The gas, however, can quickly contract, and as it does so it rotates faster, until the final result is a very thin, very rapidly rotating disk.
Astronomers do not currently know what process stops the contraction. In fact, theories of disk galaxy formation are not successful at producing the rotation speed and size of disk galaxies. It has been suggested that the radiation from bright newly formed stars, or from an active galactic nuclei can slow the contraction of a forming disk. It has also been suggested that the dark matter
Dark matter
In astronomy and cosmology, dark matter is matter that neither emits nor scatters light or other electromagnetic radiation, and so cannot be directly detected via optical or radio astronomy...
halo can pull the galaxy, thus stopping disk contraction.
In recent years, a great deal of focus has been put on understanding merger events in the evolution of galaxies. Our own galaxy (the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
) has a tiny satellite
Satellite
In the context of spaceflight, a satellite is an object which has been placed into orbit by human endeavour. Such objects are sometimes called artificial satellites to distinguish them from natural satellites such as the Moon....
galaxy (the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy
Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy
The Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy is an elliptical loop-shaped satellite galaxy of the Milky Way Galaxy. It consists of four globular clusters, the main cluster being discovered in 1994...
) which is currently gradually being ripped up and "eaten" by the Milky Way
Milky Way
The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains the Solar System. This name derives from its appearance as a dim un-resolved "milky" glowing band arching across the night sky...
. It is thought these kinds of events may be quite common in the evolution of large galaxies. The Sagittarius dwarf galaxy is orbiting our galaxy at almost a right angle to the disk. It is currently passing through the disk; stars are being stripped off of it with each pass and joining the halo of our galaxy. There are other examples of these minor accretion events, and it is likely a continual process for many galaxies. Such mergers provide "new" gas, stars, and dark matter to galaxies. Evidence for this process is often observable as warps or streams coming out of galaxies.
The Lambda-CDM model
Lambda-CDM model
ΛCDM or Lambda-CDM is an abbreviation for Lambda-Cold Dark Matter, which is also known as the cold dark matter model with dark energy...
of galaxy formation underestimates the number of thin disk galaxies in the universe. The reason is that these galaxy formation models predict a large number of mergers. If disk galaxies merge with another galaxy of comparable mass (at least 15 percent of its mass) the merger will likely destroy, or at a minimum greatly disrupt the disk, yet the resulting galaxy is not expected to be a disk galaxy. While this remains an unsolved problem for astronomers, it does not necessarily mean that the Lambda-CDM model
Lambda-CDM model
ΛCDM or Lambda-CDM is an abbreviation for Lambda-Cold Dark Matter, which is also known as the cold dark matter model with dark energy...
is completely wrong, but rather that it requires further refinement to accurately reproduce the population of galaxies in the universe.
Galaxy mergers and the formation of elliptical galaxies
Elliptical galaxy
An elliptical galaxy is a galaxy having an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless brightness profile. They range in shape from nearly spherical to highly flat and in size from hundreds of millions to over one trillion stars...
. Their stars are on orbits that are randomly oriented within the galaxy (i.e. they are not rotating like disk galaxies). They are composed of old stars and have little to no dust. All elliptical galaxies probed so far have supermassive black hole
Supermassive black hole
A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole in a galaxy, in the order of hundreds of thousands to billions of solar masses. Most, and possibly all galaxies, including the Milky Way, are believed to contain supermassive black holes at their centers.Supermassive black holes have...
s in their center, and the mass of these black holes is correlated with the mass of the elliptical galaxy. They are also correlated to a property called sigma
Sigma (cosmology)
Sigma in cosmology was a property of galaxies used when trying to work out the mystery of galaxies and their supermassive black holes.-History:...
which is the speed of the stars at the far edge of the elliptical galaxies. Elliptical galaxies do not have disks around them, although some bulges
Bulge (astronomy)
In astronomy, a bulge is a tightly packed group of stars within a larger formation. The term almost exclusively refers to the central group of stars found in most spiral galaxies...
of disk galaxies look similar to elliptical galaxies. One is more likely to find elliptical galaxies in more crowded regions of the universe (such as galaxy clusters).
Astronomers now see elliptical galaxies as some of the most evolved systems in the universe. It is widely accepted that the main driving force for the evolution of elliptical galaxies is mergers of smaller galaxies. These mergers can be extremely violent; galaxies often collide at speeds of 500 kilometers per second.
Many galaxies in the universe are gravitationally bound to other galaxies, that is to say they will never escape the pull of the other galaxy. If the galaxies are of similar size, the resultant galaxy will appear similar to neither of the two galaxies merging. An image of an ongoing merger of equal sized disk galaxies is shown left. During the merger, stars and dark matter in each galaxy become affected by the approaching galaxy. Toward the late stages of the merger, the gravitational potential
Potential energy
In physics, potential energy is the energy stored in a body or in a system due to its position in a force field or due to its configuration. The SI unit of measure for energy and work is the Joule...
, the shape of galaxy, begins changing so quickly that star orbits are greatly affected, and lose any memory of their previous orbit. This process is called violent relaxation. Thus if two disk galaxies collide, they begin with their stars in an orderly rotation in the plane of the disk. During the merger, the ordered motion is transformed into random energy. And the resultant galaxy is dominated by stars that orbit the galaxy in a complex, and random, web of orbits. And this is what we see in elliptical galaxies, stars on random unordered orbits.
Star formation
Star formation is the process by which dense parts of molecular clouds collapse into a ball of plasma to form a star. As a branch of astronomy star formation includes the study of the interstellar medium and giant molecular clouds as precursors to the star formation process and the study of young...
. During a merger some galaxies can make thousands of solar masses of new stars each year, which is large compared to our galaxy which makes about 10 new stars each year. Though stars almost never get close enough to actually collide in galaxy mergers, giant molecular clouds rapidly fall to the center of the galaxy where they collide with other molecular clouds. These collisions then induce condensations of these clouds into new stars. We can see this phenomenon in merging galaxies in the nearby universe. Yet, this process was more pronounced during the mergers that formed most elliptical galaxies we see today, which likely occurred 1-10 billion years ago, when there was much more gas (and thus more molecular clouds) in galaxies. Also, away from the center of the galaxy gas clouds will run into each other producing shocks which stimulate the formation of new stars in gas clouds. The result of all this violence is that galaxies tend to have little gas available to form new stars after they merge. Thus if a galaxy is involved in a major merger, and then a few billion years pass, the galaxy will have very few young stars (see Stellar evolution
Stellar evolution
Stellar evolution is the process by which a star undergoes a sequence of radical changes during its lifetime. Depending on the mass of the star, this lifetime ranges from only a few million years to trillions of years .Stellar evolution is not studied by observing the life of a single...
) left. This is what we see in today's elliptical galaxies, very little molecular gas and very few young stars. It is thought that this is because elliptical galaxies are the end products of major mergers which use up the majority of gas during the merger, and thus further star formation after the merger is quenched.
In the Local Group
Local Group
The Local Group is the group of galaxies that includes Earth's galaxy, the Milky Way. The group comprises more than 30 galaxies , with its gravitational center located somewhere between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy...
, the Milky Way and M31 (the Andromeda Galaxy
Andromeda Galaxy
The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 2.5 million light-years from Earth in the constellation Andromeda. It is also known as Messier 31, M31, or NGC 224, and is often referred to as the Great Andromeda Nebula in older texts. Andromeda is the nearest spiral galaxy to the...
) are gravitationally bound, and currently approaching each other at high speed. If the two galaxies do meet they will pass through each other, with gravity distorting both galaxies severely and ejecting some gas, dust and stars into intergalactic space. They will travel apart, slow down, and then again be drawn towards each other, and again collide. Eventually both galaxies will have merged completely, streams of gas and dust will be flying through the space near the newly formed giant elliptical galaxy. M31 is actually already distorted: the edges are warped. This is probably because of interactions with its own galactic companions, as well as possible mergers with dwarf spheroidal galaxies in the recent past - the remnants of which are still visible in the disk populations.
In our epoch, large concentrations of galaxies (clusters and supercluster
Supercluster
Superclusters are large groups of smaller galaxy groups and clusters and are among the largest known structures of the cosmos. They are so large that they are not gravitationally bound and, consequently, partake in the Hubble expansion.-Existence:...
s) are still assembling.
While scientists have learned a great deal about ours and other galaxies, the most fundamental questions about formation and evolution remain only tentatively answered.
See also
- Bulge (astronomy)Bulge (astronomy)In astronomy, a bulge is a tightly packed group of stars within a larger formation. The term almost exclusively refers to the central group of stars found in most spiral galaxies...
- Disc (galaxy)Disc (galaxy)A disc is a component of disc galaxies, such as spiral galaxies, or lenticular galaxies.The galactic disc is the plane in which the spirals, bars and discs of disc galaxies exist. Galaxy discs tend to have more gas and dust, and younger stars than galactic bulges, or galactic haloes.The galactic...
- Galactic coordinate systemGalactic coordinate systemThe galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system which is centered on the Sun and is aligned with the apparent center of the Milky Way galaxy. The "equator" is aligned to the galactic plane...
- Galactic coronaGalactic coronaThe terms galactic corona and gaseous corona have been used in the first decade of the 21st century to describe a hot, ionised, gaseous component in the Galactic halo of the Milky Way...
- Galactic haloGalactic haloThe term galactic halo is used to denote an extended, roughly spherical component of a galaxy, which extends beyond the main, visible component. It can refer to any of several distinct components which share these properties:* the galactic spheroid...
- Galaxy rotation problem
- Pea galaxyPea galaxyA Pea galaxy, also referred to as a Pea or Green Pea, is a type of Luminous Blue Compact Galaxy which is undergoing very high rates of star formation...
- Zeldovich pancake