Spiral Galaxies

[David R. Brandt]

I recently read that 72% of galaxies are spiral. I asked myself why are there so many and how did they form. After thinking about it for quite some time, I came up with the following:

In the beginning, of this cycle, all (or almost all) the matter of the Universe collected and exploded. The event distributed elementary 'particles' throughout the Universe. Then due to an uneven distribution of the 'particles,' 'clumps' started to form. Gravity helped and the 'clumps' became bigger and bigger. These 'clumps' became stars and continued to grow into another stage of a star’s evolution - possibly quasars. The equators of these stars were rotating much faster than other portions of the stars. This rotation eventually caused the equator to shed matter out into ‘disks.’ The matter couldn't go far before the star’s gravity counteracted the centrifugal force thus limiting the diameters of the spiral arm disks. The stars continued to pull in 'particles' from the surrounding volumes of space and they became so massive that they eventually didn't allow light to escape.

[David R. Brandt]

Thought experiment:

If the Universe started with a homogeneous distribution of the same type of atom except one that was heavier than the rest. If the atoms were equally spaced (pun intended) from each other except for the one heavier atom. That one would attract surrounding atoms. If the surrounding atoms flowed straight at the heavier atom the resulting 'ball' would have no spin. If one of the surrounding atoms wasn't headed in a straight line toward the heavier atom it would attract other atoms to 'follow' it. The result would be a spinning ball with the heavier atom at the balls equator. As the ball collected more atoms its gravity would tend to make it smaller that would in turn make the ball spin faster as spinning ice skaters spin faster when they pull in their arms. As the ball spun faster the atoms at the equator would be spinning the fastest. If the velocity at the equator exceeded the escape velocity of the ball then atoms would be shed and the spinning ball would slow down just as when spinning ice skaters slow down when they extend their arms. The shed atoms would orbit the ball because the combined gravitation of the ball and the shed atoms would hold them there. Thus 72% of galaxies are spiral.

https://www.iflscience.com/space/scient ... heir-spin/

https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/~smeibom/pa ... nature.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature14118

[David R. Brandt]

And right before your very eyes:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVo2qdXxQ7o

[David R. Brandt]

In the beginning, of this cycle, all (or almost all) the matter of the Universe collapsed and then exploded. The outer layers of the explosion were ejected at the fastest velocity, leading to what we still see today -- the observation that the stars and galaxies that are the most distant from us are moving away the fastest.

The initial explosion and expansion distributed elementary 'particles' throughout the Universe. An uneven distribution of the 'particles' and gravity led to the formation of 'clumps.’ Over time, the 'clumps' grew in size until the 'clumps' became stars with only hydrogen and helium. 1 There were no heavy elements, and hence, no planet formation until these first stars progressed through their normal life-cycles and started to explode as supernovas. Following this, a second wave of star formation occurred, this time with heavy elements present in their overall composition. These new stars went through the normally accepted cycle of spinning faster as a result of matter accumulation. Some of the heavy elements they contained were forcibly shed from each star’s equator. This loss of heavy elements not only contributed to the slowing of the rate of spin over time, but also contributed to the commonly accepted phenomenon that we call “protoplanetary disks,” ultimately leading to the formation of planets 2.

On a larger scale, a similar phenomenon was also taking place. Compared to the present, the Universe was smaller and stars were closer to one another. This made it possible for gravity to, on a larger scale, pull many stars together into larger and larger groupings, even as the Universe continued to expand.

One of the direct results of this large-scale clumping was that some of the stars merged and continued to accumulate matter, leading to yet another stage in a star’s evolution, i.e., the creation of very massive stars - possibly quasars. The massive star’s equator eventually rotated at escape velocity.

In a manner similar to what happened with smaller, single stars, this rotation eventually caused each massive star’s equator to shed heavy elements into a disk, but this time on a much larger scale. At the same time, each massive star’s gravity would have been able to counteract the centrifugal effect on its ejected matter, thus limiting the diameters of said disks. Spiral galaxies were born 3 & 4.

The large-scale process did not stop there. Each massive star continued to pull in 'particles' from the surrounding volumes of space over vast amounts of time. Ultimately, they became so massive that light could no longer escape. They became super massive black holes at the center of galaxies.

1 Young Stars
https://arxiv.org/abs/1307.2891

2 Planets formed

https://www.presentermedia.com/index.ph ... rt&id=8985

3 Spiral Galaxies

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVo2qdXxQ7o

4 Elliptical Galaxies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elliptical_galaxy