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A galaxy will continue to absorb infalling material from high-velocity clouds and dwarf galaxies throughout its life. [197] This matter is mostly hydrogen and helium. The cycle of stellar birth and death slowly increases the abundance of heavy elements, eventually allowing the formation of planets. [198]
The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31 , M31 , and NGC 224 . Andromeda has a D 25 isophotal diameter of about 46.56 kiloparsecs (152,000 light-years ) [ 8 ] and is approximately 765 kpc (2.5 million light-years ...
It is located about 640 light-years (200 parsecs) from Earth in the constellation of Cygnus. It was discovered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope in December 2011 and was the first known transiting planet to orbit within the habitable zone of a Sun-like star, where liquid water could exist on the planet's surface. [4]
Two spiral arms, the Scutum–Centaurus arm and the Carina–Sagittarius arm, have tangent points inside the Sun's orbit about the center of the Milky Way. If these arms contain an overdensity of stars compared to the average density of stars in the Galactic disk, it would be detectable by counting the stars near the tangent point.
The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy 2.73 million light-years (ly) from Earth in the constellation Triangulum.It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598.With the D 25 isophotal diameter of 18.74 kiloparsecs (61,100 light-years), the Triangulum Galaxy is the third-largest member of the Local Group of galaxies, behind the Andromeda Galaxy and the Milky Way.
Kepler-69c is a super-Earth, an exoplanet that has a radius and mass larger than Earth, but smaller than that of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune.It has an estimated equilibrium temperature of 325 K (52 °C; 125 °F), but likely has a far hotter surface temperature of 548 K (275 °C; 527 °F).
The outer planets Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune, compared to the inner planets Earth, Venus, Mars, and Mercury at the bottom right The four outer planets, called giant planets or Jovian planets, collectively make up 99% of the mass orbiting the Sun. [ h ] All four giant planets have multiple moons and a ring system, although only Saturn's ...
In astrobiology and planetary astrophysics, the galactic habitable zone is the region of a galaxy in which life is most likely to develop. The concept of a galactic habitable zone analyzes various factors, such as metallicity (the presence of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) and the rate and density of major catastrophes such as supernovae, and uses these to calculate which regions ...