Spiral Galaxy
50,000 stars woven together by gravity
Summary
A procedural model of a spiral galaxy: it shows how about 50,000 stars, through gravity and rotation, form the classic spiral structure of a reddish core and blue outer arms.
In depth
Spiral galaxies make up roughly 60% of the galaxies around us, and the Milky Way belongs to this class. Older, cooler and therefore redder stars crowd the centre, while young, hot, blue stars sit in the outer arms. The ~50,000 particles in this model are a greatly simplified version of a real galaxy simulation; think of each point as standing for millions of stars. How spiral arms form is still being researched: density wave theory proposes that the arms move around the galaxy independently of the rotation of the stars themselves.
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