Why is the Galaxy flat and not round?

The reason many galaxies are flat is because of the conservation of angular momentum. When objects revolve around the center of gravity, they have angular momentum.

Why are things in space disk shaped?

Everything gets canceled out as all these things collide and interact, but the spin of the cloud is still there. And so over time, you collapse down into a disc. So the only reason you make discs is because of this law of conservation of angular momentum, and the idea of gravity brings things together.

Why are most galaxies spiral shaped?

Astronomers believe that galaxies have spiral arms because galaxies rotate – or spin around a central axis – and because of something called “density waves.” Stars pass through the wave as they orbit the galaxy center. The wave causes the stars to slow slightly and temporarily clump together.

Why do galaxies look flat?

We see it side-on as a thin, glittering streak across the sky, with all its contents neatly aligned in the same plane. We see so many galaxies like this — flat, stretched-out pancakes — that our brains barely process their shape. This effect is due to conservation of angular momentum, and it’s true for galaxies, too.

Why is the Milky Way a disk?

The thin disk is a structural component of spiral and S0-type galaxies, composed of stars, gas and dust. Stars in the thin disk, on the other hand, are created as a result of gas accretion at the later stages of a galaxy formation and are on average more metal-rich.

Why do galaxies have angular momentum?

“Till recent years, in the paradigm of galaxy formation and evolution, elliptical galaxies were thought to have formed by the merging of stellar disks in the distant Universe. Along this line, their angular momentum was thought to be the result of dissipative processes during such merging events” say the researchers.

Why do galaxies rotate?

We know that galaxy rotation is happening because the Milky Way is a flattened disk, in the same way that the Solar System is a flattened disk. The centrifugal force from the rotation flattens out the galactic disk. All stars in the galactic disk follow roughly circular orbits around the center of the galaxy.

Are galaxies disc shaped?

So galaxies form disc shapes because the gas that makes stars falls into a disc shape. However, not all galaxies are discs. When disc-shaped galaxies collide, this can disturb the orbits of the stars, and you get a galaxy which is “blob” shaped, these are called elliptical galaxies, and are very common.