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Michael K. Rulison
(http://sites.oglethorpe.
edu/mrulison/)
Professor of Physics

Chapter 24: Galaxies

A galaxy is a collection of stars, gas and dust bound together by their common gravitational pull.
Galaxies range from 10,000 to 200,000 light-years in size and between 109 and 1014 solar luminosities
in brightness. (More on galaxy at the end of the chapter)

A light-year is the distance traveled by light moving in a vacuum in the course of one year, at its
accepted velocity of 299,792,458 meters per second (186,282 miles per second). A light-year equals
about 9.460531012 km (5.8781012 miles), or 63,240 astronomical units. About 3.262 light-years equal
one parsec.

Galaxies have certain features in common. Gravity holds the billions of stars together, and the densest
region is in the center, called a core or bulge. Some galaxies have spiral or pinwheel arms. All galaxies
have a faint outer region or envelope and a mysterious dark matter halo.
(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/galaxy_structure-215efik.gif)

The contents of galaxies vary from galaxy type to galaxy type, and with time.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/galaxevc-

1rx0ox1.gif)

Almost all galaxy types can be found in clusters of galaxies. Many clusters of galaxies have a large,
supergiant galaxy at its center which has grow by cannibalizing its neighbors. Our solar system is
located in outer regions of a spiral galaxy we call the Milky Way. The nearest neighbor galaxy is
Andromeda Galaxy (M31).
 (http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/galaxevd-

1577fwk.gif)

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/m31-1kjg29j.gif)

Hubble sequence :
Almost all current systems of galaxy classification are outgrowths of the initial scheme proposed by
American astronomer Edwin Hubble in 1926. In Hubbles scheme, which is based on the optical
appearance of galaxy images on photographic plates, galaxies are divided into three general classes:
ellipticals, spirals, and irregulars.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/hubblefork-q7yy2u.gif)

Elliptical galaxies :
Galaxies of this class have smoothly varying brightnesses, steadily decreasing outward from the center.
They appear elliptical in shape, with lines of equal brightness made up of concentric and similar
ellipses. These galaxies are nearly all of the same color: they are somewhat redder than the Sun.
Ellipticals are also devoid of gas or dust and contain just old stars.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/file
s/2016/07/ngc4881-28wjmnl.gif)

NGC 4881

All ellipticals look alike, NGC 4881 is a good example (NGC stands for New General Catalog). Notice how
smooth and red NGC 4881 looks compared to the blue spirals to the right.

Spiral galaxies :
These galaxies are conspicuous for their spiral-shaped arms, which emanate from or near the nucleus
and gradually wind outward to the edge. There are usually two opposing arms arranged symmetrically
around the center. The nucleus of a spiral galaxy is a sharp-peaked area of smooth texture, which can
be quite small or, in some cases, can make up the bulk of the galaxy. The arms are embedded in a thin
disk of stars. Both the arms and the disk of a spiral system are blue in color, whereas its central areas
are red like an elliptical galaxy.
(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/
2016/07/M100Color-w1uo22.jpg)

M100

Notice in the above picture of M100 from HST, that the center of the spiral is red/yellow and the arms
are blue. Hotter, younger stars are blue, older, cooler stars are red. Thus, the center of a spiral is made
of old stars, with young stars in the arms formed recently out of gas and dust.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/
2016/07/ngc4639-27dbof2.gif)

NGC 4639

The bulge of NGC 4639 is quite distinct from the younger, bluer disk regions.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/
2016/07/ngc4639-27dboiy.gif)

4639

NGC 1365 is a barred spiral galaxy. Note the distinct dark lanes of obscuring dust in the bar pointing
towards the bulge. A close-up of the spiral arms shows blue nebula, sites of current star formation.
(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/
2016/07/ngc1365-18no02x.gif)

NGC1365

NGC 253 is a typical Sa type galaxy with very tight spiral arms. As spiral galaxies are seen edge-on the
large amount of gas and dust is visible as dark lanes and filaments crossing in front of the bulge
regions.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/
2016/07/ngc253-2cxuasu.gif)

NGC253

Irregular galaxies :

Most representatives of this class consist of grainy, highly irregular assemblages of luminous areas.
They have no noticeable symmetry nor obvious central nucleus, and they are generally bluer in color
than are the arms and disks of spiral galaxies.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/ngc2363-

18gd94m.gif)
NGC 2363 is an example of a nearby irregular galaxy. There is no well defined shape to the galaxy, nor
are there spiral arms. A close-up of the bright region on the east side shows a cluster of new stars
embedded in the red glow of ionized hydrogen gas.

Star Formation :
The one feature that correlates with the shape, appearance and color of a galaxy is the amount of
current star formation. Stars form when giant clouds of hydrogen gas and dust collapse under their
own gravity. As the cloud collapses it fragments into many smaller pieces, each section continues to
collapse until thermonuclear fusion begins.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/cloud_frag-

1rhrsik.gif)

Initial conditions for a galaxy determines its rate of star formation. For example, elliptical galaxies
collapse early and form stars quickly. The gas is used up in its early years and today has the appearance
of a smooth, red object with no current star formation.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/sfr-

oichz2.gif)

Spirals, on the other hand, form slower, with lower rates of star formation. The gas that `fuels star
formation is used slower and, thus, there is plenty around today to continue to form stars within the
spiral arms.

Quasars:
Quasars are the most luminous objects in the Universe. The typical quasar emits 100 to 1000 times the
amount of radiation as our own Milky Way galaxy. However, quasars are also variable on the order of a
few days, which means that the source of radiation must be contained in a volume of space on a few
light-days across. How such amounts of energy can be generated in such small volumes is a challenge
to our current physics.

Quasars were originally discovered in the radio region of the spectrum, even though they emit most of
their radiation in the high energy x-ray and gamma-ray regions. Optical spectra of the first quasars in
the 1960s showed them to be over two billion light-years away, meaning two billion years into the past
as well.

(http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/qso-1dvur0v.gif)

Over a thousand quasars have been discovered, most having redshifts greater than 10 billion light-
years away. The number density of quasars drops off very fast, such that they are objects associated
with a time when galaxies were young.

The large amount of radio and x-ray emission from quasars gives them similar properties to the class of
what are called active galaxies, such as Seyfert galaxies, originally recognized by the American
astronomer Carl K. Seyfert from optical spectra. Seyfert galaxies have very bright nuclei with strong
emission lines of hydrogen and other common elements, showing velocities of hundreds or thousands
of kilometers per second, where the high energy emission is probably due to a Galactic mass black hole
at the galaxies core (for example, NGC 4261). The idea is that quasars are younger, and brighter,
versions of Seyfert galaxies.

The nuclear spectra of Seyfert galaxies show broad emission lines, which are indicative of a central
concentration of hot gas that is expanding at speeds of up to thousands of kilometres per second.
Galaxies of this type appear normal in ordinary photographs but are extremely strong sources of
infrared radiation. Moreover, many are powerful sources of radio energy and X rays as well. About 1
percent of all spiral galaxies are thought to exhibit Seyfert properties; or perhaps all spiral galaxies are
Seyferts 1 percent of the time

HST imaging showed that quasars are centered in the middle of host galaxies, giving more support to
the idea that the quasar phenomenon is assoicated with Galactic mass black holes in the middle of the
host galaxies. Since a majority of the host galaxies are disturbed in appearence, the suspucion is that
colliding galaxies cause stars and gas to be tidally pushed into the black hole to fuel the quasar.
 (http://sites.oglethorpe.edu/mrulison/files/2016/07/qsohosts-

1gz9nqf.jpg)

This process would explain the occurence of quasars with redshift. In the far distant past there were no
galaxies, so no sites for quasars. In the early phases of galaxy formation, the galaxy density was high,
and there were many collisions producing many quasars. As time passed, the number of collisions
decreased as space expanded and the number of quasar also dropped.

Galaxy:

A galaxy is any of the billions of systems of stars and interstellar matter that make up the Cosmos.

Galaxies vary considerably in size, composition, and structure, but nearly all of them are arranged in
groups, or clusters, of from a few to as many as 10,000 members each. The diameters of galaxies are
generally measured in tens of thousands of light-years. The distance between galaxies within a cluster
averages approximately 1,000,000-2,000,000 light-years, and the spaces between clusters of galaxies
may be a hundred times as great. Each galaxy is composed of innumerable starsmost likely from
hundreds of million to more than a trillion stars. In many galaxies, as in the Milky Way Galaxy, clouds
of interstellar gas and dust particles known as nebulas can be detected.

The majority of known galaxies fall into one of three major classes: spirals, ellipticals and irregulars.
Roughly 70 percent of the bright galaxies in the sky are of the spiral variety, including the Milky Way
Galaxy.

A spiral galaxy has a main disk of stars 50,000 to 150,000 light-years in diameter and a thickness up to a
tenth as great. Embedded in the disk are the spiral arms, winding out from the centre like those of a
pinwheel. The arms contain the greatest concentration of a spiral galaxys interstellar gas and dust, and
it is in these regions that star formation can occur. Among newly formed stars are the occasional short-
lived, highly luminous ones; their presence in the arms makes them conspicuous on telescopic
photographs. Surrounding the central nucleus of a spiral galaxy is a large nuclear bulge, which is
nearly spherical in most cases and may have a diameter of up to half that of the disk. Outside the
nuclear bulge and disk is a sparse, more or less spherical halo of star clusters, individual stars, and
perhaps other matter. The halo may extend far beyond the disk and contain most of the galaxys mass.

Spiral galaxies are generally subdivided into normal and barred types. In the latter, the arms begin
either from the ends of a straight bar of stars and interstellar matter passing through the nucleus or
from a circular ring surrounding the bar, rather than from the nucleus. Spirals are still further
subdivided according to three well-correlated parameters: the size of the nucleus, the tightness of the
winding of the arms, and the smoothness of the arms.

An elliptical galaxy has a telescopic image that reveals a symmetrical distribution of stars in a spherical
or spheroidal shape. Such galaxies range from the rare giant ellipticals, which extend several hundred
thousand light-years across, to dwarf ellipticals of only a few million stars. The dwarf ellipticals are by
far the most common kind of galaxy, although none is conspicuous in the sky. The projected images of
ellipticals range from nearly circular to extremely elongated. Their flattening, however, is not due to
rotation, and it is not known whether their true shapes are oblate or prolate spheres.

A small number of galaxies do not fit neatly into the usual scheme, and they are classified as irregular.
There are also some special classes, a few of which are considered here. The first of these are the S0
galaxies, which are usually found in rich clusters of galaxies. They resemble spirals but have no spiral
arms, possibly because their interstellar matter is stripped away as they move through intracluster gas.
A second type of unusual star system is the cD galaxy. Such galaxies are supergiant ellipticals that often
occur at or near the centre of rich galactic clusters. They are thought to result from the merging, or
fusion, of several galaxies that have collided. Active nuclei galaxies constitute one other notable class of
unusual galaxies. Their central nuclei show evidence of spectacular or violent activity. These range
from Seyfert galaxies to quasars, the latter generally believed to be exceedingly bright nuclei of very
remote galaxies.

Quasar

A quasar is any of a class of rare cosmic objects of high luminosity as well as strong radio emission
observed at extremely great distances. The term is also often applied to closely related objects that have
the same optical appearance but that are radio quietthe so-called QSOs, which stands for quasi-stellar
objects.

Quasars were first detected as unresolved sources in surveys conducted during the 1950s by radio
astronomers in Cambridge, Eng. Optical photographs subsequently taken of their spectra showed
locations for emission lines at wavelengths that were at odds with all celestial sources then familiar to
astronomers. The puzzle was solved by the American astronomer Maarten Schmidt, who announced in
1963 that the pattern of emission lines in 3C 273 could be understood as coming from hydrogen atoms
that had a redshift of 0.158. In other words, the wavelength of each line was 1.158 times longer than the
wavelength measured in the laboratory where the source is at rest with respect to the observer. (The
general formula is that, if the factor is 1 + z, astronomers say the astronomical source has a redshift of
z. If z turns out to be negative [i.e., if 1 + z is less than 1], the source is said to be blueshifted.)

Schmidts discovery raised immediate excitement, since 3C 273 had a redshift whose magnitude had
been seen theretofore only among the most distant galaxies. Yet it had a starlike appearance, with an
apparent brightness (but not a spectrum) in visible light not very different from that of a galactic star at
a distance of a few thousand light-years. If the quasar lay at a distance appropriate to distant galaxies a
few times 10 light-years away, then the quasar must be 1012 times brighter than an ordinary star.
Similar conclusions were reached for other examples. Quasars seemed to be intrinsically brighter than
even the most luminous galaxies known, yet they presented the pointlike image of a star.
A hint of the actual physical dimensions of quasars came when sizable variations of total light output
were seen from some quasars over a year or two. These variations implied that the dimensions of the
regions emitting optical light in quasars must not exceed a light-year or two, since coherent
fluctuations cannot be established in any physical object in less time than it takes photons, which move
at the fastest possible speed, to travel across the object. These conclusions were reinforced by later
satellite measurements that showed that many quasars had even more X-ray emission than optical
emission, and the total X-ray intensity could vary in a period of hours. In other words, quasars released
energy at a rate exceeding 1012 suns, yet the central machine occupied a region only the size of the
solar system.

Understandably, the implications were too fantastic for many people to accept, and a number of
alternative interpretations were attempted. An idea common to several of the alternatives involved the
proposal that the redshift of quasars arose from a different (i.e., noncosmological) origin than that
accepted for galaxies. In that case, the distance to the quasars could be much less than assumed to
estimate the energy outputs, and the requirements might be drastically relaxed. None of the alternative
proposals, however, withstood close examination.

In any case, there now exists ample evidence for the validity of attributing cosmological distances to
quasars. The strongest arguments are the following. When the strong nonstellar light from the central
quasar is eliminated by mechanical or electronic means, a fuzzy haze can sometimes be detected still
surrounding the quasar. When this light is examined carefully, it turns out to have the colour and
spectral characteristics appropriate to a normal giant galaxy. This suggests that the quasar
phenomenon is related to nuclear activity in an otherwise normal galaxy. In support of this view is the
observation that quasars do not really form a unique class of objects. For example, not only are there
elliptical galaxies that have radio-emission characteristics similar to those of quasars, but there are
weaker radio sources among spiral galaxies (called Seyferts after their discoverer, the American
astronomer Carl K. Seyfert), which have bright nuclei that exhibit qualitatively the same kinds of
optical emission lines and nonstellar continuum light seen in quasars. There also are elliptical galaxies,
N galaxies, and the so-called BL Lac objects, which have nuclei that are exceptionally bright in optical
light. Plausible unification schemes have been proposed to explain many of these objects as the same
intrinsic structure but viewed at different orientations with respect to relativistically beamed jets or
with obscuring dust tori surrounding the nuclear regions or both. Finally, a number of quasars
including the closest example, the famous source 3C 273have been found to lie among clusters of
galaxies. When the redshifts of the cluster galaxies are measured, they have redshifts that bracket the
quasars, suggesting that the quasar is located in a galaxy that is itself a cluster member.

Seyfert Galaxy

A Seyfert galaxy is any of a class of galaxies known to have active nuclei. Such galaxies were named for
the American astronomer Carl K. Seyfert, who first called attention to them in 1944. The nuclear
spectra of Seyfert galaxies show broad emission lines, which are indicative of a central concentration
of hot gas that is expanding at speeds of up to thousands of kilometres per second. Galaxies of this type
appear normal in ordinary photographs but are extremely strong sources of infrared radiation.
Moreover, many are powerful sources of radio energy and X rays as well. About 1 percent of all spiral
galaxies are thought to exhibit Seyfert properties; or perhaps all spiral galaxies are Seyferts 1 percent
of the time
Galaxy

A galaxy is any of the billions of systems of stars and interstellar matter that make up the Cosmos.

Galaxies vary considerably in size, composition, and structure, but nearly all of them are arranged in
groups, or clusters, of from a few to as many as 10,000 members each. The diameters of galaxies are
generally measured in tens of thousands of light-years. The distance between galaxies within a cluster
averages approximately 1,000,000-2,000,000 light-years, and the spaces between clusters of galaxies
may be a hundred times as great. Each galaxy is composed of innumerable starsmost likely from
hundreds of million to more than a trillion stars. In many galaxies, as in the Milky Way Galaxy, clouds
of interstellar gas and dust particles known as nebulas can be detected.

The majority of known galaxies fall into one of three major classes: spirals, ellipticals and irregulars.
Roughly 70 percent of the bright galaxies in the sky are of the spiral variety, including the Milky Way
Galaxy.

A spiral galaxy has a main disk of stars 50,000 to 150,000 light-years in diameter and a thickness up to a
tenth as great. Embedded in the disk are the spiral arms, winding out from the centre like those of a
pinwheel. The arms contain the greatest concentration of a spiral galaxys interstellar gas and dust, and
it is in these regions that star formation can occur. Among newly formed stars are the occasional short-
lived, highly luminous ones; their presence in the arms makes them conspicuous on telescopic
photographs. Surrounding the central nucleus of a spiral galaxy is a large nuclear bulge, which is
nearly spherical in most cases and may have a diameter of up to half that of the disk. Outside the
nuclear bulge and disk is a sparse, more or less spherical halo of star clusters, individual stars, and
perhaps other matter. The halo may extend far beyond the disk and contain most of the galaxys mass.

Spiral galaxies are generally subdivided into normal and barred types. In the latter, the arms begin
either from the ends of a straight bar of stars and interstellar matter passing through the nucleus or
from a circular ring surrounding the bar, rather than from the nucleus. Spirals are still further
subdivided according to three well-correlated parameters: the size of the nucleus, the tightness of the
winding of the arms, and the smoothness of the arms.

An elliptical galaxy has a telescopic image that reveals a symmetrical distribution of stars in a spherical
or spheroidal shape. Such galaxies range from the rare giant ellipticals, which extend several hundred
thousand light-years across, to dwarf ellipticals of only a few million stars. The dwarf ellipticals are by
far the most common kind of galaxy, although none is conspicuous in the sky. The projected images of
ellipticals range from nearly circular to extremely elongated. Their flattening, however, is not due to
rotation, and it is not known whether their true shapes are oblate or prolate spheres.

A small number of galaxies do not fit neatly into the usual scheme, and they are classified as irregular.
There are also some special classes, a few of which are considered here. The first of these are the S0
galaxies, which are usually found in rich clusters of galaxies. They resemble spirals but have no spiral
arms, possibly because their interstellar matter is stripped away as they move through intracluster gas.
A second type of unusual star system is the cD galaxy. Such galaxies are supergiant ellipticals that often
occur at or near the centre of rich galactic clusters. They are thought to result from the merging, or
fusion, of several galaxies that have collided. Active nuclei galaxies constitute one other notable class of
unusual galaxies. Their central nuclei show evidence of spectacular or violent activity. These range
from Seyfert galaxies to quasars, the latter generally believed to be exceedingly bright nuclei of very
remote galaxies.

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