Related topics: galaxies · star formation

Hubble spots energetic galaxy NGC 547

This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image reveals NGC 547, an elliptical galaxy that sits about 250 million light-years away from Earth in the constellation Cetus. NGC 547 shines just below the center of this image, with its ...

Hubble observes lenticular galaxy NGC 3489

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured this image of the lenticular galaxy NGC 3489. Lenticular galaxies aren't quite spiral galaxies or elliptical galaxies. They lie somewhere in between, exhibiting traits of both. Lenticular ...

Hubble observes ram pressure stripping in galaxy JW100

The galaxy JW100 (lower right) features prominently in this image from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The streams of star-forming gas dripping from the disk of the galaxy like streaks of fresh paint are formed by a ...

Is the Milky Way normal?

Studying the large-scale structure of our galaxy isn't easy. We don't have a clear view of the Milky Way's shape and features like we do of other galaxies, largely because we live within it. But we do have some advantages. ...

Black hole discovered firing jets at neighboring galaxy

With the help of citizen scientists, a team of astronomers has discovered a unique black hole spewing a fiery jet at another galaxy. The black hole is hosted by a galaxy around one billion light years away from Earth named ...

Center of the Coma cluster explored with AstroSat

Using India's AstroSat spacecraft, astronomers have investigated a central field of a cluster of galaxies known as the Coma cluster. Results of the study, presented in a paper published September 13 on arXiv.org, deliver ...

Hubble images unusual galaxy NGC 1156

The galaxy featured in this image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has a shape unlike many of the galaxies familiar to Hubble. Its thousands of bright stars evoke a spiral galaxy, but it lacks the characteristic "winding" ...

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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 flattened and in size from hundreds of millions to over one trillion stars.

Elliptical galaxies are one of the three main classes of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble in his 1936 work “The Realm of the Nebulae”, along with spiral and lenticular galaxies.

Most elliptical galaxies are composed of older, low-mass stars, with a sparse interstellar medium and minimal star formation activity. They are surrounded by large numbers of globular clusters. Elliptical galaxies are believed to make up approximately 10-15% of galaxies in the local Universe but are not the dominant type of galaxy in the universe overall. They are preferentially found close to the centers of galaxy clusters and are less common in the early Universe.

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