Flocculent spiral galaxy

NGC 4414, a flocculent spiral

A flocculent spiral galaxy is a type of spiral galaxy. Unlike the well-defined spiral architecture of a grand design spiral galaxy, flocculent (meaning "fluffy") galaxies are patchy, with discontinuous spiral arms.[1][2] Approximately 30% of spirals are flocculent, 10% are grand design, and the rest are referred to as "multi-armed".[3] The multiple-arm type is sometimes grouped into the flocculent category.[4]

The prototypical flocculent spiral is NGC 2841.[5]

Examples

Example Class Image Constellation Notes
NGC 4414 SA(rs)c Coma Berenices [6]
NGC 2841 SA(r)b Ursa Major [5]
NGC 3521 SAB(rs)bc Leo [5]
NGC 7793 SA(s)d Sculptor [5]
Pinwheel Galaxy
(Messier 101)		 SAB(rs)cd Ursa Major [7]

References

  1. ↑ COSMOS - SAO Encyclopedia of Astronomy, "Grand Design Spiral" (accessed 23 April 2010)
  2. ↑ COSMOS - SAO Encyclopedia of Astronomy, "Flocculent Spiral" (accessed 23 April 2010)
  3. ↑ Case Western Reserve University, Chris Mihos, ASTR222 - Spring 2008, "Spiral Structure" (accessed 23 April 2010)
  4. ↑ University of Virginia, Mark Whittle, ASTR 553/554 : Extragalactic Astronomy (2007), "Lecture 5: Spiral Galaxies" (accessed 23 April 2010)
  5. 1 2 3 4 "A Near-Infrared Atlas of Spiral Galaxies", Debra Meloy Elmegreen, "CH3. Discussion" (accessed 23 April 2010)
  6. ↑ Nemiroff, R.; Bonnell, J., eds. (3 April 2002). "NGC 4414: A Flocculent Spiral Galaxy". Astronomy Picture of the Day. NASA. Retrieved 23 April 2010.
  7. ↑ Spitzer/JPL/NASA, "The Pinwheel Galaxy, M101, in the Infrared", 07.21.08 (accessed 23 April 2010)

Sources

External links

Look up flocculent spiral galaxy in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 12/2/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.