Astronomers Are Still Trying to Understand How a Galaxy's Spiral Arms Form

Astronomers Are Still Trying to Understand How a Galaxy's Spiral Arms Form

Spiral galaxies, including grand spirals like the Whirlpool galaxy, are plentiful. But it's still a mystery how their spiral arms form and persist for hundreds of millions of years, and why some galaxies have one, two, or three or more arms. New research based on Euclid data finds links between galaxy mass, star formation rate, and number of arms, and hints at their formation.

Durham astronomers uncover the earliest known signs of galaxy-building in action

Astronomers from Durham University Physics Department have discovered the earliest known evidence of a galaxy being shaped from the inside out, revealing that key processes in galaxy evolution were already under way when the Universe was still young