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Galaxy

Triangulum Galaxy
Image from Steve Bowers
The Triangulum galaxy

A gravitationally bound collection of stars, dust, and gas with a mass ranging from 100 million to 10 billion times that of the sun. Types include spiral, elliptical, and irregular.

Over the span of billions of years, galaxies may collide with one another, and usually the larger galaxy absorbs the smaller one, although this is a long process which may involve significant disruption to some, or both objects. Sometimes this involves the creation of long streams of stars which can orbit the new common centre of gravity for an extended period.

 
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Development Notes
Text by M. Alan Kazlev
Initially published on 01 November 2001.

 
 
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