Post
by Inthedesert » Mon Mar 05, 2012 3:21 am
I am not an astronomer so what I have to say may be simple nonsense. I really mean this in an informal, what-if, imaginary sort of way. But when I look at the photo of ESO 510-13, I see an elliptical galaxy that for some reason, say gravitational forces of some sort, begins to collapse around the edge of a forming disk, collapsing from the outside toward the center of the galaxy, almost like a whoopie cushion deflating into a flat shape. In this galaxy as it is seen, a disk is beginning to form and exists as an undulating skirt somewhat like the undulating fringes on a cuttlefish. In the photo, the arms of the spiral do not appear to be spiraling at all. They seem more static as if undulating vertically in the photo, perpendicular to the plane of the galaxy. Then I had the fantasy, what if there was an evolution between elliptical and spiral galaxies, elliptical being more primitive. Something in the life of an elliptical galaxy causes it to flatten and become a spiral. What we see in the photo is the process halfway concluded. As the stars and matter condense from the outside edge of the disk-to-be, they begin to swirl into a spiral and fall into the black hole in the center. Matter is compressed until there is a mini-big bang and the compressed galactic matter shoots out in the form of an elliptical galaxy, and the process repeats. Oh, and a barred spiral is the intermediate form between the collapsing elliptical as we see it in this photo and the true, mature spiral, galaxy (I think I saw a photo somewhere recently showing this evolution). Just a fun pipe dream, folks. Peace.