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Astronomers Are Still Trying to Understand How a Galaxy's Spiral Arms Form

July 21, 2026
Astronomers Are Still Trying to Understand How a Galaxy's Spiral Arms Form
By Evan Gough (https://ift.tt/1glJT7a)

The Whirlpool Galaxy (M51) is the classic grand design spiral galaxy. It was the first object recognized as a spiral, though at the time astronomers thought they were nebulae. Astronomers have been pondering spiral galaxies for a long time, trying to understand how their spiral arms persist. New research has at least a partial answer. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, S. Beckwith (STScI) and the Hubble Heritage Team (STScI/AURA)

Spiral galaxies, including grand spirals like the Whirlpool galaxy, are plentiful. But it's still a mystery how their spiral arms form and persist for hundreds of millions of years, and why some galaxies have one, two, or three or more arms. New research based on Euclid data finds links between galaxy mass, star formation rate, and number of arms, and hints at their formation.



July 22, 2026 at 01:08AM
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