local group of galaxies?

Question

is it true regarding the local group of
Galaxies, that most of the galaxies it contains are elliptical or irregular?

Answer 1

That's correct.....I can't remember the exact numbers of each but there's something like 40 or so galaxies in the group. Goto the table at the page I have listed below in "source" and it will give you the lowdown on the Local Group.

Oh, and contrary to popular opinion, whilst Andromeda is the largest galaxy of the group, that's only in terms of linear size. Our Milky Way is the most massive of the group......~2 trillion solar masses c.f. ~1.2 trillion solar masses...total. Our galaxy is more compact and denser than Andromeda.

Answer 2

Our local group contains the Milky Way and Andromeda (M31) and M33, which are spirals, M32 and NGC 205, which are ellipticals, and the large and small Magellanic Clouds, which are irregular. These are probably the best known galaxies in the local group, so among them the elliptical plus irregular outnumber spiral 4 to 3. (Source: National Geographic Atlas of the World.)

Note the information from Ozzie35 below, however, which shows that there are in fact now many more known galaxies in the local group; and still the ellipticals + irregulars outnumber the spirals.

Galaxies come in three generic shapes: spiral, elliptical, and irregular. There are shapes within shapes, too, like open spiral, barred spiral, and so on. For galaxy shapes in general see (1) below.

What about the distribution of galaxy shapes in general? That's a tough question. Astronomers are still working on ways to determine more accurately the shape of galaxies (especially ones that are very far away). One reason for this is to test more carefully a hypothesis that elliptical galaxies in general contain older stars than spiral galaxies. For a rather technical account of how astronomers determine galaxy shape for difficult-to-observe galaxies, see (2) below. (Sorry but it's the best I could find on this.)

Finally, it is interesting how the shape of our own galaxy was determined (since we can't observe it from outside). See (3)

Answer 3

I'm not sure, but I love astronomy, so I'll put this on my watch list. Looks like the first person to answer knows. Although M-31 (Andromeda) is about 3 million light years away. The Milky Way and Andromeda are spiral as is Messier 33. Only Messier 32 of our local group is elliptical.

Answer 4

convinced, surely maximum galaxies are area of a larger team inspite of the actuality that none have a recognition somewhat as homey and comfortable as our "interior sight team". there are a approach of designations. The brighter galaxy clusters frequently are named after the constellation they live in which includes the typically suggested Virgo cluster. some fainter galaxy communities are named after particular astronomers who cataloged and/or studied them extensively, which includes Stephan's Quintet in Pegasus. Others are named after the brightest member (frequently an NGC cataloged galaxy) with the suffix "team". Others have more suitable arcane names that are the catalog of a particular observatory or college community and characteristic combos of letters and numbers separated by skill of dashes and such.

Answer 5

galeaxies are random in shape some r spherical, it depends on the arrangement of the stars

Answer 6

Yes, and ours may soon be also after we collided with M-31.