Astronomy Magazine

Irregular Galaxies

Posted on the 27 April 2011 by Gabe12logan
Irregular galaxies are a special group that have no symmetry or usual signs of other galaxies. The mass of them is small and they are of low-gloss. Their irregular shapes suggests that they have not rotational movement and that they are immersed in the interstellar matter. In them there are a large number of blue stars, which means that these are young stars that are formed there. They mark with the symbol Irr and they take up 3% of all galaxies. A typical example of this type of galaxy is the Large and Small Magellanic Cloud. They are usually found near large galaxies and their appearance is probably the result of collisions with much larger galaxies. And among the irregular galaxies are noticed some characteristics by which they are divided into two subclasses. Subclass II are brighter, have a complex structure and some of them have discernible traces of spiral arms. Typically, these galaxies are in pairs which could be talking about the former spiral galaxies whose shape is disrupted by mutual gravitational effects.
Irregular galaxies (Irr) don't have unique characteristics. Irregular galaxies contain large amounts of interstellar matter which allows the formation of young stars. Due to the deflection of gravitational influence within galaxies or due to neighboring galaxies, these galaxies are taking many forms that can not be classified in the form of a disc or ellipsoid. Irregular galaxy is a galaxy of irregular shape and is full of young stars, dust and gas.
Magellan clouds were only small galaxies compared with the Milky Way which belongs to larger spiral galaxies. They are irregular galaxies of medium size, and although it usually says that they are the satellites of our system, in that we are not convinced. But one thing is certain: strong gravitational forces of Milky Way acting on the Magellan clouds. Perhaps these influences were crucial to their irregular shape, since for them could not be said that they are particularly active galaxies. In the Large Magellanic Cloud is visible spiral structure, but none of the clouds has clearly expressed the core of which is a feature of irregular galaxies.

Back to Featured Articles on Logo Paperblog

Magazines