There was a time when people believed that the Earth is the center of the Universe, around which all celestial bodies revolve. Now we know that this is not at all the case: our solar system is just a tiny part of a huge galaxy called the Milky Way - colossal by earthly standards and at the same time infinitely small against the backdrop of a vast universe.
To understand how grand galactic scales are, it is enough to give a small example. The diameter of the Sun is more than a hundred times greater than the diameter of the Earth. But compared to the size of the galaxy, this is a completely insignificant figure. Their ratio is approximately the same as if we were comparing the point at the end of this sentence with the whole continent. But galaxies in the universe are innumerable, and they are not located close to each other. And they are all so different ...
For every taste and color
Elliptical galaxies, contrary to the name, are not necessarily elliptical. Their shape varies from elongated to almost round (in the photo - NGC1404), and the brightness gradually decreases from the center to the edges. In elliptical galaxies, there is practically no main building material of the universe - gas and dust, so new stars do not form there. Such galaxies consist predominantly of red and yellow giants and dwarfs, with rare intersperses of dim white stars.
NGC 1365, a spiral galaxy with a jumper (Photo: ESO / IDA / Danish 1.5 m / R. Gendler, J-E. Ovaldsen, C. Thöne, and C.
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