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What do elliptical galaxies look like?
Elliptical galaxies are shaped like ellipses (stretched circles). They are divided into eight types: E0-E7 depending on how elliptical they are. E0 ellipticals are nearly circular, while E7s are very stretched out. Elliptical galaxies are made up of mostly old stars, and do not have much gas and dust.
What does an elliptical star look like?
They are about as simple as a gathering of stars can be: massive blobs roughly spherical in shape. Through an amateur telescope, they appear as no more than a round, fuzzy patch of light against the dark background of the night sky.
What kind of stars are in elliptical galaxies?
In fact, elliptical galaxies contain primarily old, red stars (also known as Population II stars). Elliptical galaxies vary widely in size. Both the largest and the smallest known galaxies are elliptical. Very large elliptical galaxies can reach 300 million light years in diameter.
How can one make a giant elliptical galaxy?
Giant elliptical galaxies are generally thought to be the result of galaxy mergers. Ordinary elliptical galaxies may also form in this manner, or may have formed from the gravitational collapse of an interstellar gas cloud.
What causes elliptical galaxies?
When two spirals collide, they lose their familiar shape, morphing into the less-structured elliptical galaxies. A supermassive black hole is thought to lie at the center of these ancient galaxies. Born from collision, elliptical galaxies are more commonly found around clusters and groups of galaxies.
How big is the elliptical galaxies?
Elliptical galaxies vary greatly in both size and mass with diameters ranging from 3,000 light years to more than 700,000 light years, and masses from 105 to nearly 1013 solar masses. This range is much broader for this galaxy type than for any other.
Why do elliptical galaxies have old stars?
Spiral galaxies are hotbeds of star formation, but elliptical galaxies aren’t nearly as prolific because they contain less gas and dust, which means fewer new (and brighter) stars are born. The existing stars inside an elliptical galaxy tend to be older, giving off more red light than younger stars.
What color is an elliptical galaxy?
yellow-red
Elliptical galaxies appear typically yellow-red, as opposed to spirals which have spiral arms that appear quite blue. Much speculation continues on how each type of galaxy can form, on whether ellipticals can evolve from colliding spirals, or spirals can be created from colliding ellipticals, or both.
What is elliptical galaxy?
What Are Elliptical Galaxies? Elliptical galaxies are the most abundant type of galaxies found in the universe but because of their age and dim qualities, they’re frequently outshone by younger, brighter collections of stars. Elliptical galaxies lack the swirling arms of their more well-known siblings, spiral galaxies.