Do irregular galaxies have blue stars?
Do irregular galaxies have blue stars?
Most representatives of this class consist of grainy, highly irregular assemblages of luminous areas. They have neither noticeable symmetry nor an obvious central nucleus, and they are generally bluer in colour than are the arms and disks of spiral galaxies.
Do irregular galaxies have a lot of stars?
Having a lot of gas and dust means that these galaxies have a lot of star formation going on within them. This can make them very bright. The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are examples of irregular galaxies. They are two small galaxies which orbit around our own Milky Way Galaxy.
Do elliptical galaxies have blue stars?
In recent years, the centers of elliptical galaxies have been found to emit unexpectedly high amounts of blue and ultraviolet light. Most blue light from spiral galaxies originates from massive young hot stars, in contrast to the red light from the old cool stars thought to compose ellipticals.
Why do elliptical galaxies not have blue stars?
And the reason elliptical galaxies are not blue is that they’re unable to form new stars, so only the red ones are left. Addendum thanks to Peter Erwin: Spiral galaxies may eventually deplete most of their interstellar gas (partially through outflows) and stop forming stars.
What are two characteristics of irregular galaxies?
Irregular galaxies are the most unusual of galaxies. They don’t seem to fit into either the spiral or elliptical galaxy categories. They don’t have nice spiral arms, but they do have dark patches of gas and dust.
What does an irregular galaxy contain?
They have no defined shape nor structure and may have formed from collisions, close encounters with other galaxies or violent internal activity. They contain both old and young stars, significant amounts of gas and usually exhibit bright knots of star formation.
What is different about irregular galaxies?
How many stars are in elliptical galaxies?
Elliptical galaxies range in size from tens of millions to over one hundred trillion stars.
What kind of stars do elliptical galaxies contain?
In general, the stars in elliptical galaxies are old, red stars. These galaxies look the same from all angles, too. Astronomers used the ages of the red stars in the elliptical galaxies to determine that these galaxies are pretty old. Maybe they were spirals once with gas and dust in spiral arms.
What are the properties of an irregular galaxy?
An irregular galaxy is a galaxy that does not have a distinct regular shape, unlike a spiral or an elliptical galaxy. Irregular galaxies do not fall into any of the regular classes of the Hubble sequence, and they are often chaotic in appearance, with neither a nuclear bulge nor any trace of spiral arm structure.
