Our neighbor, the Andromeda spiral galaxy.
Click on image for full size
Image provided by Jason Ware
Spiral Galaxies
Spiral galaxies may remind you of a pinwheel that blows in the breeze.
Like a pinwheel, a spiral galaxy is rotating, and it has spiral
arms. Through a telescope or binoculars,a spiral galaxy may look like
a very dim smudge with a bright spot in the center. All the light of
the galaxy comes from the billions of stars orbitting the center of
the galaxy, and the gas in the spiral arms.
Spiral galaxies have some parts which are very old, and some parts
which are young. The center part is called the bulge and it contains
only old stars. The spinning spiral arms have lots of gas to make new
stars.
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