Explore the morphology, rotation curves, stellar populations, and central supermassive black holes of the universe's greatest island star cities.
The largest member of our Local Group, containing roughly one trillion stars. It is approaching the Milky Way at 110 km/s and will merge with us in approximately 4.5 billion years to form a giant elliptical galaxy.
Visit the Andromeda and Milky Way systems in real 3D scale with 100,000 catalog stars.
Fly in 3D Universe13-1-morphologyEdwin Hubble classified galaxies into spiral, barred spiral, elliptical, and irregular systems based on their visible structural geometry.
Galaxies are the fundamental building blocks of the visible universe. In 1926, Edwin Hubble created the 'Tuning Fork Diagram' to classify them: Ellipticals (E0 to E7) have smooth starlight with ancient Population II stars and very little dust. Spirals (Sa, Sb, Sc) have luminous disks with active star formation in sweeping arms. Barred spirals (like our own Milky Way!) possess a central bar of stars that funnels gas directly into the core.
Elliptical galaxies and bulges follow the de Vaucouleurs profile I(R) = I_e * exp(-7.67 * ((R/R_e)^(1/4) - 1)), whereas galactic disks follow an exponential decay I(R) = I_0 * exp(-R / R_d).
I(R) = I_e \cdot \exp\left[-b_n \left(\left(\frac{R}{R_e}\right)^{1/n} - 1\right)\right]Edwin Hubble used Cepheid variable stars in the Andromeda Galaxy (M31) in 1923 to prove it was a separate 'island universe' millions of light-years away, ending the Great Debate!
Compare Andromeda (Barred Spiral SA(s)b) and the Sombrero Galaxy (SA(s)a) in the 3D model above to see how bulge size and disk tilt change their appearance.
Our astrophysics simulation engine is currently implementing a multi-threaded Barnes-Hut octree numerical solver to model tidal tail ejection and dynamical friction in real time. The core theoretical chapters, Hubble tuning fork classifications, and 3D catalog galaxy models above are fully operational.
Now that you understand galactic structures and central supermassive black holes, delve deep into the relativistic physics of event horizons, pulsars, and spacetime curvature!