Re: Interesting concultural ideas

Anton Sherwood:
>Andreas Johansson wrote:
> > Also, why wipe the arms of a spiral galaxy, then the universe teems with
> > elliptical galaxies that're basically spiral ones without arms? As a
> > bonus, elliptical galaxies are found in a much wider variety of sizes
> > that spiral ones (from much much smaller than the smallest spiral ones
> > to several times bigger than the biggest spiral ones).
>
>Is there a continuum from big globular clusters to small elliptical
>galaxies?  Or are these essentially different things?
Oddly enough, the question hasn't been addressed in any book I've read. I
THINK they are essentially different things, but I could be wrong. Many,
prehaps all, large elliptical galaxies have been fromed by collisions
between spiral ones (which have the effect that the farther a galaxy is from
us the less likely it is to be elliptic), which presumeably makes them
essentially different things from small elliptic galxies that formed as
satellites of spiral ones, altho' they look much the same apart from size.
But galaxy fromation is still a poorly understood subject.

                                            Andreas

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