Hubbles galaxy families are nearly

a century old, but astronomers still

debate their meaning ~ By Gregory D. Bothun

BEYOND THE

HUBBLE
SEQUENCE
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What exactly is a galaxy?

Is there really more than one type?
Do they evolve from one type to another?

An obvious first step toward answers

was to search the galaxy zoo for distinct
species. While all galaxies are made of
stars, gas, and dust, those elements are
distributed differently in different galaxies. The ultimate hope is that a galaxys
appearance reflects the physics underlying
its formation and evolution. Just as evolutionary biology started with the classification of flora and fauna, one might argue,
so an evolutionary theory of galaxies
should flow from galaxy classification.
Galaxy classification was first pursued
systematically by Hubble. Of course,
there were earlier attempts, beginning
with Charles Messier, who compiled his
famous collection of faint, fuzzy objects.
A more extensive catalog of nebulae was compiled by John Herschel in
1864, but that was quickly supplanted by
J. L. E. Dreyers New General Catalogue
of Nebulae and Clusters of Stars, first
published in 1888. With its approximately 8,000 objects, that catalog testifies to the dark skies that preceded
the industrial age.
By 1908, with the completion of the Mount Wilson 60inch telescope it became possible to image in some detail the
approximately 15,000 nebulae
cataloged at that time. When, in
turn, the 100-inch Hooker reflector
became available in 1919, Hubble was
able to take thousands of photographic
plates of the nebulous objects now known
as galaxies. Those plates led the famous
astronomer to define what we now call
the Hubble sequence.
Every astronomy textbook has a diagram showing the Hubble sequence, and
it has served astronomers well for the
past 75 years. But can we expect it to remain relevant as we open new spectral
windows and build instruments of unparalleled sensitivity and resolution? For
Right: Edwin Powell Hubble (18891953),
whose tuning fork galaxy classification is
still used today.

instance, the Hubble Space Telescope

(HST) and a new generation of groundbased giants have allowed astronomers to
observe galaxies as they appeared when
they were perhaps only 1 or 2 billion
years old. This new avenue of exploration
is best manifested by the glorious Hubble
Deep Field (HDF) images, each of which
depicts more than 3,000 galaxies in a field
of view only a couple of arcminutes
across! As it turns out, one is hardpressed to put the rich diversity of galaxy
forms in the HDF images into the orderly
bins of the Hubble sequence.
A Brief History of the
Hubble Sequence
When galaxies are photographed, Hubble
quickly noted, two principal features are
immediately recognized: the size and/or
brightness of the spheroidal component
relative to the disk (known as the bulge-todisk ratio, or B/D), and the overall texture
and definition of the spiral pattern. In general, star formation occurs in the disk.
Since star formation brightens a galaxy primarily in the blue and ultraviolet spectral

THE OBSERVATORIES OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON

INSETS: LESLIE KUCHINSKI, INFRARED PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS CENTER

These were the kinds of questions first asked in the 1920s, when the basic nature of
galaxies vast, self-contained star cities millions of light-years away was discovered by Edwin P. Hubble. And they remain partially unanswered even today.

2000 MARK A. GARLICK HTTP://SPACE-ART.CO.UK/

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope May 2000

37

Sa
M94

E0

E6

M87

NGC 3115

Sb
NGC 2903

Sc
M74

Sd
NGC 925

S0
Edwin Hubble ordered galaxies, from early-type ellipticals to late-type spirals, on the basis of central concentration and spiral-arm texture. The sequence splits into a tuning fork because each class of ordinary spirals has
an analogue with prominent central bar structure. See page 120 for a visual
observers guide to the Hubble sequence. Galaxy photographs copyright Carnegie Institution of Washington.

NGC 1201

SBa
regions, disks are generally blue. In contrast, the bulge or spheroidal component is
usually a collection of the oldest stars and
hence is relatively red (the light is dominated by red giants). When Hubble began
to classify galaxies it was not known that
bulge stars were older than those in
disks. It wasnt until 1944 that Walter
Baade proposed the concept of stellar
populations in spiral galaxies and made
this apparent.
It is clear, though, that as one progresses along the tines of the tuning
fork the spiral arms become better defined. Thus the texture of the arms became the main criterion for ranking spirals. In 1961 this was spelled out in detail
by Hubbles protg, Allan R. Sandage
(Carnegie Observatories), in The Hubble
Atlas of Galaxies. The prominence of the
spheroidal region was to become only a
minor consideration in determining the

M95

SBb
NGC 1097

subtype (Sa, Sb, Sc, and so on) of a spiral

galaxy.
While Sandage was trying to complete
the job left unfinished by his mentors
untimely death, other astronomers took
morphological classification to a more
complex level. In the 1960s University of
Texas astronomer Grard de Vaucouleurs
further subdivided the Hubble sequence
on the basis of inner and outer rings that
sometimes appear within the overall spiral pattern. Often these rings exist in conjunction with bars, large or small. The
whole hierarchy of bars and rings was en-

When Hubble began to classify galaxies, the stellar populations of the bulge and disk components had not yet been disentangled. Hubbles successor, Allan Sandage, later relied principally on details in the disk to refine the Hubble sequence.

SBc
M83

SBd
NGC 4236

coded in the morphological type, which

in some cases requires a cryptographer to
decipher. For instance, the galaxy NGC
3198, shown below, may look simple, but
its full classification is R1SB(rs)ab!
In the mid-1970s Sydney van den
Bergh (Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, Canada) proposed a two-dimensional classification with one dimension
based on the texture of the arms and the
other on the observed B/D ratio. (Despite
many impressions to the contrary, the starformation rate in a spiral galaxy is not
strongly dependent on B/D, so these quantities are indeed mostly independent.)
Today most astronomers use Sandages
revision of the Hubble sequence as the
primary means of classifying galaxies.
NGC 3198, a 10th-magnitude Sc spiral in Ursa
Major, may look simple, but its full classification in Grard de Vaucouleurss complex nomenclature is R1SB(rs)ab. Unless otherwise
noted, images are courtesy the author.

Disk

M31 PHOTOGRAPH BY JERRY LODRIGUSS

Bulge

38

May 2000 Sky & Telescope

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NASA / TONY HALLAS

Arguably the most penetrating astronomical

photograph ever taken, the Hubble Deep
Field a 100-hour-long observation of a single
spot in Ursa Major is an extragalactic gold
mine that has been plumbed by hundreds of
astronomers. The smallest blips on this portion
of the Deep Field may be 1- or 2-billion-yearold building blocks that later merged, forming todays mature galaxies. A second Deep
Field was imaged in the constellation Tucana.

The complex scheme proposed by de

Vaucouleurs has not been widely adopted, and van den Berghs seems to have
been largely ignored, even though it certainly provides a more quantitative measure of galaxy morphology than does the
revised Hubble sequence.
Instrumental Limitations
At its core, galaxy classification is a
shorthand way of describing how galaxy
components map onto the things we actually see on the sky. But how reliable is
this mapping? For instance, what properties determine a galaxys appearance
on a photograph? Do these properties
cause the galaxy to change its appearance when viewed at different wavelengths? What measurable physical properties correlate with Hubble type?
As stated earlier, galaxies have two principal structural components: a disk (where
active star formation occurs) and a spheroidal region of old stars (the bulge). The
relative prominence of these structural
features is very wavelength-dependent. For
instance, ultraviolet images will be sensitive to active star-formation sites, while infrared images will favor older stars.
The image sequence shown at right
should make it clear that disks and spiral
arms are more pronounced when observed at short wavelengths and less so at
longer ones. Multiwavelength investigations clearly show that the spatial distribution of young stars in a spiral galaxy is
quite different from that of older ones.

These differences are determined by the

detailed dynamical and star-formation
history of a particular galaxy. However,
keep in mind that the ability to acquire
multiwavelength images, particularly in
the infrared, has been available only
since the late 1980s (S&T: June 1995,
page 18). If Hubble or Sandage had had
ultraviolet- and infrared-imaging capability, an entirely different system of
morphological classification quite likely
would have been developed.
With our new instrumental capabilities
we can now observe very distant galaxies
and compare their forms to nearby ones
in an attempt to uncover signs of evolution. However, when we take optical images of distant galaxies (those with red-

shifts above 1, several billion light-years

away) we are not observing the visible
light these galaxies emitted. Rather, we
are observing light that was emitted in
the ultraviolet, then redshifted into the
visual part of the spectrum during its
journey through the expanding universe.
Since a galaxys ultraviolet appearance is
almost entirely dependent on its star-formation rate at the time of emission, we
may very well be comparing apples and
oranges when trying to apply a photographically based classification system to
high-redshift galaxies.
Curiously, this problem has been greatly
exacerbated by the lack of an adequate
database of ultraviolet images of nearby
galaxies. HST has a very small field of
view, so dozens of exposures would be required to obtain an ultraviolet view of one
nearby galaxy in its entirety. To date, the
only ultraviolet images of entire nearby
galaxies are those acquired with the 18inch Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (UIT),
which has flown twice on space-shuttle
missions. Approximately 50 nearby galaxies have been photographed with UIT. In
general, the morphological appearance of
disk galaxies in the ultraviolet is fairly
chaotic in nature, with little if any relation
to the appearance of the smoother, older

Bandpass bias as seen in ultraviolet (left), blue-light (center), and near-infrared (right) images
of the Sb-type spiral M81 in Ursa Major. Note that the bulge almost disappears in the ultraviolet, while the contrast of the spiral arms decreases at successively redder wavelengths. Ultraviolet image courtesy Eric P. Smith (NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center).

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Sky & Telescope May 2000

39

stellar population, which is dominant in

the near infrared. The apparently chaotic
appearance of many of the HDF galaxies
may therefore be the norm.
So far we have discussed the application of galaxy classification to galaxies
that are easy to detect. However, within
the last decade a large population of lowsurface-brightness (LSB) galaxies has been
discovered. LSB galaxies are very diffuse
and hard to detect against the noise of
the night-sky background, even when observed from a site with little artificial
light pollution (S&T: April 1998, page
28). Two examples of these ghost galaxies
are shown below. Surveys to date suggest
that half of all galaxies belong to the LSB
family. Since these galaxies, in general, are
diffuse blobs without much spiral structure, they fall well outside the Hubble sequence. In this sense, morphological classification is biased toward those galaxies
that are easiest to detect.
Finally, there is one other important
complication in the morphological classification of galaxies: dust. Dust preferentially
scatters short-wavelength radiation and
hence discriminates against sources of blue
light. For instance, we know that massive
star clusters are often formed in giant molecular-cloud complexes that contain large
amounts of dust. The ultraviolet radiation
given off by the hot, massive stars in these
young clusters is generally heavily obscured. Only when infrared observations
are made can the obscuration be overcome
and the clusters detected. As a result, in
some galaxies intrinsic morphological features cannot be seen in the ultraviolet or
visible portions of the spectrum, but they
pop out when imaged in the infrared.

Nearby Galaxy

Ultraviolet
light

Visible
light

Distant Galaxy
Visible light

May 2000 Sky & Telescope

Ultraviolet
light

High
recession
speed

Universe
expands
Infrared light

Galaxy Evolution and the

Hubble Sequence
In the early part of this century astronomers thought that Hubbles tuning fork
represented an evolutionary trajectory,
with galaxies changing from smooth and
ordered (ellipticals or early types) to a
more chaotic appearance (spirals or late
types). This view was particularly championed by James Jeans in his 1928 book
Astronomy and Cosmogony, and it is clear
that this work influenced Hubbles thinking. Still others thought the pattern was
reversed and galaxies were some kind of
thermodynamic exception that evolved
from chaos to order. In the 1950s, when
the ages of galaxies could be ascertained,
it became clear that early- and late-type
galaxies were all approximately the same
age; the tuning fork was not a manifes-

Ghost galaxies at the very threshold of visibility. Such galaxies cannot be seen on ordinary
astronomical photographs, even when taken with the worlds largest telescopes; hence they
fall outside the purview of the Hubble sequence. As many as half the universes galaxies may
be low-surface-brightness objects like these.

40

Low
recession
speed

Since ultraviolet light from

extremely distant galaxies is
shifted into the visible part
of the electromagnetic spectrum by the universes expansion, ultraviolet templates are essential to our
understanding of galaxy
evolution.

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Visible
light

tation of temporal evolution. This implies

that most galaxies are born with their
morphology. This in fact may be the most
important aspect of the Hubble sequence.
We have established that spiral-arm
definition is a principal component of
galaxy classification. In turn, the spiral
arms reflect recent star formation, which
often occurs along their leading edges.
This is related to the density-wave theory
of spiral structure. Density waves rotate
through the disk at a different rate
(called the pattern speed) than the disks
material constituents themselves. In
doing so they shock gas clouds, driving
star formation and illuminating the spiral pattern with the light of young stars
and regions of ionized hydrogen gas.
In this view, the Hubble sequence is a
sequence in the average age of each galaxys stars. For example, the smooth-arm
spirals that define the Sa type have low
present-day star-formation rates and
hence an older average stellar age than a
galaxy with a higher present-day starformation rate (like an Sc). While this
view is still somewhat controversial, it is
consistent with most of the available
data. The importance of average stellar
age was first hinted at in a 1978 paper by
Richard Larson (Yale University) and the
late Beatrice Tinsley. In 1984 my collaborators and I performed the first largescale infrared observations of disk galaxies, which strongly confirmed the notion
that early-type disk galaxies had a significantly larger ratio of old to young stars
than the later types.
Since galaxies are entities that turn gas
into stars, eventually the gas becomes

NGC 2403

M51

LESLIE KUCHINSKI, INFRARED PROCESSING AND ANALYSIS CENTER

M83

Multiwavelength views combining data from the Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (colored blue)
and visible-wavelength frames (colored green and red) from ground-based observatories. Active star-forming sites pepper the leading edges of spiral arms, while older stars populate
disks, bars, and bulges in a more diffuse manner.

used up and star formation ceases. Therefore, if morphology is a strong reflection

of star formation, it also must be transient. As the light from recent star formation fades, a galaxy will take on the appearance of the older, underlying stellar
population. When this is coupled with
surface-brightness and bandpass bias, it
seems clear that morphology may be a
profoundly misleading indicator of evolution. A better tactic would be to use a
more quantitative factor to compare nearby (old) galaxies with distant (young)
ones. Some examples might be the B/D
ratio when measured at red wavelengths;
the shape of the rotation curve; or the
ratio of a galaxys mass to its luminosity.
These quantities are more physically coupled to the true dynamical evolution of
galaxies than mere morphology, and future studies will surely concentrate on
these indicators and others like them.
Why Is There a Hubble Sequence?
Over the last 25 years astronomers have
produced a number of papers with the
catchy title The Origin of the Hubble Sequence. Proposed determinants of a galaxys Hubble type include the galaxys total
mass; the mass of its bulge; its angular moBlue light

NGC 6902

mentum; the angular momentum of its

dark-matter halo; the collapse rate of the
protogalactic gas cloud that formed the galaxy; and the protogalaxys cooling time.
Given that the observed Hubble sequence is largely based on relative amounts
of star formation, the issue is which of
the above parameters determines a galaxys star-formation history. This is an
area of very active theoretical investigation. Unfortunately, at the moment the
answer seems to be that all of these parameters are important! What dominates remains unclear. But lets look at the validity of each of these items in some detail.
Total mass: True, most early-type galaxies are massive, while most low-mass
galaxies are late types. However, spirals
of all types can be found within a given
range of galaxy mass, so total mass is unlikely to be the fundamental determinant
of morphology.
Bulge mass: There remains the relatively widespread belief that the Hubble sequence is a sequence in bulge mass or
bulge-to-disk ratio. However, when quan-

titative data are obtained one finds a relatively large range of B/D at a given level
of spiral-arm definition. Furthermore,
the present-day star-formation rate seems
to be largely independent of a galaxys
B/D ratio. Low-surface-brightness galaxies dramatize this point as they are usually low-B/D systems (a late-type characteristic) that nevertheless have very low
present-day star-formation rates (like
early-type spirals).
Angular momentum: The total angular
momentum of a spinning disk definitely
affects the rate at which gas can be transported, so ultimately it does influence star
formation and hence morphology. However, data indicate that there is no difference
in specific angular momentum (angular
momentum per unit mass) along the Hubble sequence of spirals. It is true that elliptical galaxies have much lower specific angular momentum than spirals. But this is
just a physical way of saying things that
dont spin dont produce disks!
Halo angular momentum: This relatively
recent idea has a lot of merit. Astronomers

Bandpass bias at the other end of the visible spectrum. As these blue-light and infrared images show, one cannot conclusively state that a spiral galaxy has (or lacks) a bar on the basis
of just one image or photograph. Courtesy Paul Eskridge, Ohio State University.

Infrared (1.6 microns)

Blue light

Infrared (1.6 microns)

NGC 5805

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Sky & Telescope May 2000

41

MARK DICKINSON (SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE) / HDF-N/NICMOS GO TEAM

Even halfway across the visible universe, spiral galaxies like this 22nd-magnitude mote from
the northern Hubble Deep Field have color-dependent forms. Because galaxy bars pop out at
longer wavelengths (the J and H bands here), statements about barred-galaxy evolution may
be premature when based only on visible-light views of the high-redshift universe.

strongly suspect that galaxies are surrounded by quasi-spherical halos of dark

matter, an idea probably best credited to
early-1970s observations by Vera Rubin
(Carnegie Institution of Washington) and
her collaborators. In this view, the luminous parts of a galaxy represent the conversion into stars of baryonic gas that was
trapped in its dark-matter gravity well.
This leads to a paradox of sorts: if galaxies
are composed mostly of dark matter, then
how reliably do luminous stars reflect a
galaxys fundamental nature? Might the
Hubble sequence be superfluous? Until we
understand the nature of dark matter and
measure its abundance we will be one step
removed from the fundamental physics of
galaxy formation and evolution.
In the meantime, however, we can explore the link between halo angular momentum and galaxy morphology with numerical simulations. Simulations show that
halos with low angular momentum allow a
protogalaxys baryonic gas to produce a
spherical ball of stars (an elliptical galaxy).
Halos with large amounts of angular momentum transfer that momentum to the
gas, giving rise to a disk. One problem with
this model is that we dont yet know how

galaxy halos acquire their own angular

momentum in the first place. A popular
model uses tidal torques from neighboring
galaxies. However, this implies there should
be some difference in angular momentum,
and hence morphology, between disks in
galaxy clusters and those in low-density regions. To date, such differences have not
been observed, though it must be noted
that disk galaxies are rare in dense clusters.
The collapse rate/cooling time: These
two ideas really are one.
Gas balls need to dissipate
Initial gas halo
Final galaxy
energy (in the form of raNo rotation
diation) in order to cool
and collapse. The rate at
collapses to
which they do so depends
primarily on the overall
gas density and secondariSpheroidal distribution
of stars and gas
ly on angular momentum
Some
rotation
(rotating gas bags collapse
more slowly than nonrotating ones) and on chemical composition. A very
Flattened spheroid and
plausible physical arguextended, gas-rich disk
ment suggests that the colStrong rotation
lapse rate determines the
Side view
amount of gas that goes
into making the first gen-

A galaxy starts out as a smooth mixture of gas and dark matter, but those constituents separate as the gas cools and sinks to the center. In one theory, the eventual visible form of the galaxy depends on how much the system spins. Absent
angular momentum, the gas will eventually form a spherical ball of stars like an
early-type elliptical galaxy. An extremely high amount of angular momentum will
create a diffuse late-type disk galaxy with an insignificant central bulge.
42

May 2000 Sky & Telescope

eration of stars. Protogalaxies that collapse relatively rapidly convert a large

amount of gas into stars, leaving little left
over to form an extended disk. In contrast,
objects with long collapse times are initially inefficient star factories; as a result,
they retain larger reservoirs of gas that
make extended disks. If galaxies actually
formed in isolation, this scenario could go
a long way toward explaining why some
galaxies have disks while others do not.
However, since galaxies are highly clustered and deep HST and Keck observations show this clustering continues
out to relatively high redshift we know
that galaxies dont form in isolation and
this picture is oversimplified. Indeed, one
of the most fundamental insights into the
relationship between morphology and
environment was made in 1980 by Alan
Dressler (Carnegie Observatories). Dressler found that late-type galaxies exist primarily in low-density environments and
are generally absent in high-density ones,
with the converse being true for ellipticals. This is likely because, in dense environments, the slow formation process of
disk galaxies is disrupted by encounters
with other galaxies.
It appears that there is no one dominant physical mechanism that determines
the morphological properties of a galaxy.
One overall idea has emerged, however:
the amount of gas left over after the formation of the first generation of stars is
likely the most important parameter

2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

Gas
motion

Top view

Extended disk with no spheroid

Unanswered Questions
Morphological classification serves a very
useful purpose initially for understanding
galaxy evolution. By sorting galaxies into
different forms, one can ascertain the
total range of galaxy formation and evolution; from that, one can try to home in
on the physics that underlies the morphology. We are now getting a sharper
view of galaxy properties, facilitated by
excellent instrumentation. In the quest for
this clarity three questions have arisen:
Do we see evidence for a change in galaxy
type with cosmic time (that is, with redshift)? Here the answer depends critically
on the sample chosen for study. In quantitative terms it does seem clear (from the
HDF) that galaxy sizes are changing. At
high redshift (that is, billions of years ago)
there were apparently many more galaxies
than there are now, and they were smaller
than todays star cities. This is consistent
with the idea that large galaxies are built of
smaller ones by a gravitational assembly
line of sorts. How this process actually
produces todays galaxy types is unclear.
What morphological features persist
longest? So far we have argued that spiralarm definition and texture must be transient properties driven by variations in a
galaxys star-formation rate. As its gas is
used up we might expect a disk galaxys
appearance to evolve from chaotic to ordered; a disk that has not formed stars for
a few billion years will appear quite
smooth because there are no clusters of
massive stars or glowing gaseous patches
(H II regions) powered by newborn stars.
Hence a galaxys Hubble type, as defined
by spiral-arm texture, is transient.
Eventually all disk galaxies will stop
forming stars and join the S0 family. The
time scale over which this occurs obviously varies considerably from galaxy to
galaxy. At the present time, most disk
galaxies have approximately 5 percent of
their total mass in the form of gas and so
are nearing the end of their star-forming
period. An important exception, however, is provided by the low-surface-brightness galaxies, which often have relatively
abundant gas reserves. This indicates
that their evolutionary clocks are significantly slower than those of the spiral
galaxies that define the Hubble sequence.
Given these variable gas-consumption

EUROPEAN SOUTHERN OBSERVATORY

guiding a galaxys subsequent evolution.

The problem is that we just dont know
what physical processes determine how
much gas is left over in the first place!

The enigmatic galaxy Centaurus A shows some of the limitations of galaxy classification
schemes: while outwardly shaped like an elliptical galaxy, Cen A is bisected by a mammoth
dust lane similar to those in diffuse, late-type spirals. A copious source of radio waves, Cen A is
probably the result of a recent merger between two very different galaxies.

time scales, it is dangerous to infer much

about galaxy evolution from overall diskgalaxy morphology. However, the B/D
ratio is fairly stable as long as the measurement is done at longer (redder) wavelengths. Searching for evolution in the
B/D ratio as a function of redshift would
seem to be a very profitable way to objectively study galaxy evolution.
Do galaxies undergo morphological evolution, and if so, does that mirror changes in
their physical properties? Clearly, a galaxys
luminosity and/or surface brightness can
evolve, and the bulge can change with regard to these properties at a different rate
than the disk. But absent augmentation
by galaxy mergers, satellite accretion, or
strong tidal encounters, it does seem as
if luminosity evolution occurs separately
within the bulge and disk structures. In
that sense, none of the fundamental physical properties are really changing. What
does change is the stellar population, and
hence the appearance, of the disk. We
might expect galaxies to experience episodic star formation and to go through
periods of enhanced, then diminished,
spiral-arm definition. But this morphological metamorphosis is not mirroring any
2000 Sky Publishing Corp. All rights reserved.

fundamental change in the galaxys mass

distribution. A galaxys basic structure, it
seems, is determined at birth, in the stillmysterious process of galaxy formation.
In sum, while the Hubble sequence is
a valuable tool for identifying different
kinds of galaxies, its use as a fundamental probe of galaxy evolution is problematic. A galaxy can best be defined as dynamical components embedded in a
dark-matter halo. When gas turns to
stars we have a luminous tracer of those
dynamical components, but this tracer
can be transient in nature.
Since the concept of dark matter was
completely unknown during Hubbles
time, it should not be surprising that the
Hubble sequence may not reveal the real
physics of galaxy formation and evolution. As we build bigger and better instruments like the Next Generation Space
Telescope, perhaps we will be able to
glimpse the secrets of galaxy birth.
Gregory Bothun is a professor of physics
and astronomy at the University of Oregon,
where he specializes in low-surface-brightness
galaxies, observational cosmology, and the
large-scale structure of the universe.
Sky & Telescope May 2000

43