How are lenticular galaxies formed?

Lenticular galaxies might result from a galaxy merger, which increase the total stellar mass and might give the newly merged galaxy a disk-like, arm-less appearance. Alternatively, it has been proposed that they grew their disks via (gas and minor merger) accretion events.

How do you make an elliptical galaxy?

The universe is a violent place, and collisions between galaxies are frequent — indeed, the Milky Way is due to crash into the Andromeda Galaxy in a few billion years. When two spirals collide, they lose their familiar shape, morphing into the less-structured elliptical galaxies.

What is the difference between elliptical and lenticular galaxies?

Lenticular Galaxy is a galaxy that is somewhere between Elliptical and Spiral galaxies. They exhibit characteristics of the other two galaxies. The galaxies will have a central bulge and disks but will not have arms that you would find in spiral galaxies such as our own, the Milky Way.

Is there a lenticular galaxy?

When viewed edge-on, lenticular galaxies (alternatively called S0 galaxies) have a shape reminiscent of a lens (hence the alternative name). Located at the fork in the Hubble classification diagram and labelled S0 or SB0, they have a structure that appears intermediate between elliptical galaxies and spiral galaxies.

What is Hubble tuning fork?

The Hubble sequence is a morphological classification scheme for galaxies invented by Edwin Hubble in 1926. It is often colloquially known as the Hubble tuning fork diagram because the shape in which it is traditionally represented resembles a tuning fork.

What is a lenticular galaxy NASA?

Lenticular Galaxy – A galaxy that has qualities of both elliptical and spiral galaxies, sometimes called an armless spiral. Spiral Galaxy – A galaxy characterized by its spiral structure, with star-filled arms that extend out from the center of the galaxy and host regions of star formation.

What is the most striking visual feature of this lenticular galaxy?

What is the most striking visual feature of this lenticular galaxy? It looks like the central bulge of a spiral galaxy but it has no spiral arms. How would you describe the shape of the Large Magellanic Cloud?

What was wrong with Hubble tuning fork?

Hubble believed that galaxies started at the left end of the diagram and evolved to the right. He called the elliptical galaxies “early galaxies” and the spirals “late galaxies.” We now know that he was wrong: galaxies do not move down the forks of the diagram as they evolve.

Is the Hubble Tuning Fork accurate?

However, one of the key characteristics of the tuning fork system is a correlation between a spiral galaxy’s bright bulge and how tightly the arms are wound. A study using the citizen science project Galaxy Zoo has found that this correlation might not be as accurate as Hubble predicted.

What is a lenticular galaxy?

A Lenticular galaxy is basically a kind of galaxy which borders in between an elliptical and spiral galaxy when classified. They are shaped like a disk, and have almost no interstellar matter, and very little formation of stars. There are, however, remnants of small dust particles.

Are lenticular galaxies the result of mergers?

So, as an alternative, some astronomers now suggest that lenticular galaxies are the result of mergers between two old, spiral galaxies. This would explain the disk structure and the lack of free gas. Also, with the combined mass of two galaxies, the higher surface brightness would be explained.

What are the characteristics of an elliptical spiral and lenticular galaxy?

Lenticular galaxies generally have flat, disk-like shapes. However, unlike spiral galaxies, they lack the distinctive arms that usually wrap themselves around the central bulge. (Though, like both spiral and elliptical galaxies, they can have a bar structure passing through their cores.)

How can you tell if a lenticular galaxy is old?

Since lenticular galaxies have disk-like shapes with central bulges but have no distinctive arms, it is possible that they are simply old, faded spiral galaxies. The presence of a lot of dust, but not a lot of gas suggests that they are old, which would seem to confirm this suspicion.