Astronomy › Section T · Galaxies and quasars › Topic T.2
Types of galaxies
Galaxies come in a few basic shapes: spirals, ellipticals, lenticulars and irregulars. Sorting them by appearance is the first step to understanding what they contain and how they change.
In this topic
- Sorting galaxies by shape
- Spiral galaxies
- Sa, Sb and Sc
- Barred spirals
- Elliptical galaxies
- Worked example: classifying ellipticals
- Lenticular galaxies
- Irregular and dwarf galaxies
- Worked example: reading a galaxy's type
- A sequence of shapes, not of ages
- Common mistakes to avoid
- Key takeaways
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