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Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
A dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) is a term in astronomy applied to small, low-luminosity galaxies with very little dust and an older stellar population. They are found in the Local Group as companions to the Milky Way and to systems that are companions to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). While similar to dwarf elliptical galaxies in appearance and properties such as little to no gas or dust or recent star formation, they are approximately spheroidal in shape and generally have lower luminosity. Discovery Despite the radii of dSphs being much larger than those of globular clusters, they are much more difficult to find due to their low luminosities and surface brightnesses. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies have a large range of luminosities, and known dwarf spheroidal galaxies span several orders of magnitude of luminosity. Their luminosities are so low that Ursa Minor, Carina, and Draco, the known dwarf spheroidal galaxies with the lowest luminosities, have mass-to-light ratios (M/L) greate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sloan Digital Sky Survey
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey or SDSS is a major multi-spectral imaging and spectroscopic redshift survey using a dedicated 2.5-m wide-angle optical telescope at Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, United States. The project began in 2000 and was named after the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which contributed significant funding. A consortium of the University of Washington and Princeton University was established to conduct a redshift survey. The Astrophysical Research Consortium (ARC) was established in 1984 with the additional participation of New Mexico State University and Washington State University to manage activities at Apache Point. In 1991 the Sloan Foundation granted the ARC funding for survey efforts and the construction of equipment to carry out the work.. Background At the time of its design, the SDSS was a pioneering combination of novel instrumentation as well as data reduction and storage techniques that drove major advances in astronomical observations, di ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Elliptical Galaxies
An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The Realm of the Nebulae'', with their intermediate scale disks, a subset of the "early-type" galaxy population. Most elliptical galaxies are composed of older, low-mass stars, with a sparse interstellar medium and minimal star formation activity, and they tend to be surrounded by large numbers of globular clusters. Elliptical galaxies are believed to make up approximately 10–15% of galaxies in the Virgo Supercluster, and they are not the dominant type of galaxy in the universe overall. They are preferentially found close to the centers of galaxy clusters. Elliptical galaxies range in size from dwarf ellipticals with tens of millions of stars, to supergiants of over one hundred trillion stars that dominate their galaxy clusters. Originally, Ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarf Elliptical Galaxies
Dwarf elliptical galaxies, or dEs, are elliptical galaxies that are smaller than ordinary elliptical galaxies. They are quite common in galaxy groups and clusters, and are usually companions to other galaxies. Examples "Dwarf elliptical" galaxies should not be confused with the rare "compact elliptical" galaxy class, of which M32, a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy, is the prototype. In 1944 Walter Baade confirmed dwarf ellipticals NGC 147 and NGC 185 as members of the Local Group by resolving them into individual stars, thanks to their relatively little distance. In the 1950s, dEs were also discovered in the nearby Fornax and Virgo clusters. Relation to other elliptical galaxy types Dwarf elliptical galaxies have blue absolute magnitudes within the range fainter than ordinary elliptical galaxies. The surface brightness profiles of ordinary elliptical galaxies was formerly approximated using ''de Vaucouleur's model'', while dEs were approximated with an exponentially ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxies
A dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph) is a term in astronomy applied to small, low-luminosity galaxies with very little dust and an older stellar population. They are found in the Local Group as companions to the Milky Way and to systems that are companions to the Andromeda Galaxy (M31). While similar to dwarf elliptical galaxies in appearance and properties such as little to no gas or dust or recent star formation, they are approximately spheroidal in shape and generally have lower luminosity. Discovery Despite the radii of dSphs being much larger than those of globular clusters, they are much more difficult to find due to their low luminosities and surface brightnesses. Dwarf spheroidal galaxies have a large range of luminosities, and known dwarf spheroidal galaxies span several orders of magnitude of luminosity. Their luminosities are so low that Ursa Minor, Carina, and Draco, the known dwarf spheroidal galaxies with the lowest luminosities, have mass-to-light ratios (M/L) greate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hercules (dwarf Galaxy)
Hercules, or Her, is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy situated in the Hercules constellation and discovered in 2006 in data obtained by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The galaxy is located at a distance of about 140 kpc from the Sun and moves away from the Sun with a velocity of about 45 km/s. It is classified as a dwarf spheroidal galaxy (dSph). It has a noticeably elongated (ratio of axes ~ 3:1) shape with a half-light radius of about 350 pc. This elongation may be caused by tidal forces acting from the Milky Way galaxy, meaning that Her is being tidally disrupted now. Her also shows some gradient of velocities across the galaxy's body and is embedded into a faint stellar stream, which also points towards its ongoing tidal disruption. Her is one of the smallest and faintest satellites of the Milky Way—its integrated luminosity is about 30,000 times that of the Sun (absolute visible magnitude of about −6.6), which is comparable to the luminosity of a typical globular ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virial Theorem
In mechanics, the virial theorem provides a general equation that relates the average over time of the total kinetic energy of a stable system of discrete particles, bound by potential forces, with that of the total potential energy of the system. Mathematically, the theorem states \left\langle T \right\rangle = -\frac12\,\sum_^N \bigl\langle \mathbf_k \cdot \mathbf_k \bigr\rangle where is the total kinetic energy of the particles, represents the force on the th particle, which is located at position , and angle brackets represent the average over time of the enclosed quantity. The word virial for the right-hand side of the equation derives from ''vis'', the Latin word for "force" or "energy", and was given its technical definition by Rudolf Clausius in 1870. The significance of the virial theorem is that it allows the average total kinetic energy to be calculated even for very complicated systems that defy an exact solution, such as those considered in statistical mechanics; thi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal
The Sextans Dwarf Spheroidal is a dwarf spheroidal galaxy that was discovered in 1990 by Mike Irwin as the 8th satellite of the Milky Way, located in the constellation of Sextans. It is also an elliptical galaxy, and displays a redshift because it is receding from the Sun at 224 km/s (72 km/s from the Galaxy). The distance to the galaxy is 320,000 light-years and the diameter is 8,400 light-years along its major axis. Like other dwarf spheroidal galaxies, the Sextans Dwarf's population consists of old, metal-poor stars: one study found that the majority of stars have a metallicity between e/H= −3.2 and −1.4. An analysis of several stars found them to also be deficient in barium Barium is a chemical element with the symbol Ba and atomic number 56. It is the fifth element in group 2 and is a soft, silvery alkaline earth metal. Because of its high chemical reactivity, barium is never found in nature as a free element. Th ..., except for one star. References ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ursa Major
Ursa Major (; also known as the Great Bear) is a constellation in the northern sky, whose associated mythology likely dates back into prehistory. Its Latin name means "greater (or larger) bear," referring to and contrasting it with nearby Ursa Minor, the lesser bear. In antiquity, it was one of the original 48 constellations listed by Ptolemy in the 2nd century AD, drawing on earlier works by Greek, Egyptian, Babylonian, and Assyrian astronomers. Today it is the third largest of the 88 modern constellations. Ursa Major is primarily known from the asterism of its main seven stars, which has been called the "Big Dipper," "the Wagon," "Charles's Wain," or "the Plough," among other names. In particular, the Big Dipper's stellar configuration mimics the shape of the "Little Dipper." Two of its stars, named Dubhe and Merak ( α Ursae Majoris and β Ursae Majoris), can be used as the navigational pointer towards the place of the current northern pole star, Polaris in Ursa Mino ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lambda-CDM Model
The ΛCDM (Lambda cold dark matter) or Lambda-CDM model is a parameterization of the Big Bang cosmological model in which the universe contains three major components: first, a cosmological constant denoted by Lambda (Greek Λ) associated with dark energy; second, the postulated cold dark matter (abbreviated CDM); and third, ordinary matter. It is frequently referred to as the ''standard model'' of Big Bang cosmology because it is the simplest model that provides a reasonably good account of the following properties of the cosmos: * the existence and structure of the cosmic microwave background * the large-scale structure in the distribution of galaxies * the observed abundances of hydrogen (including deuterium), helium, and lithium * the accelerating expansion of the universe observed in the light from distant galaxies and supernovae The model assumes that general relativity is the correct theory of gravity on cosmological scales. It emerged in the late 1990s as a concord ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Star Cluster
Star clusters are large groups of stars. Two main types of star clusters can be distinguished: globular clusters are tight groups of ten thousand to millions of old stars which are gravitationally bound, while open clusters are more loosely clustered groups of stars, generally containing fewer than a few hundred members, and are often very young. Open clusters become disrupted over time by the gravitational influence of giant molecular clouds as they move through the galaxy, but cluster members will continue to move in broadly the same direction through space even though they are no longer gravitationally bound; they are then known as a stellar association, sometimes also referred to as a ''moving group''. Star clusters visible to the naked eye include the Pleiades, Hyades, and 47 Tucanae. Open cluster Open clusters are very different from globular clusters. Unlike the spherically distributed globulars, they are confined to the galactic plane, and are almost always found wit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dark Matter
Dark matter is a hypothetical form of matter thought to account for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe. Dark matter is called "dark" because it does not appear to interact with the electromagnetic field, which means it does not absorb, reflect, or emit electromagnetic radiation and is, therefore, difficult to detect. Various astrophysical observationsincluding gravitational effects which cannot be explained by currently accepted theories of gravity unless more matter is present than can be seenimply dark matter's presence. For this reason, most experts think that dark matter is abundant in the universe and has had a strong influence on its structure and evolution. The primary evidence for dark matter comes from calculations showing that many galaxies would behave quite differently if they did not contain a large amount of unseen matter. Some galaxies would not have formed at all and others would not move as they currently do. Other lines of evidence include observa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
