Quote:
Originally Posted by JaseD
Hi,
I am curious as to why the Small Magellanic Cloud has numerous classifications. Yes, I understand that the early hubble scheme was inadequate and the people like de Vaucouleurs and Sandage revised it.
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Hi Jase,
Indeed it is historical.
Early galaxy classification schemes go back as far as Wolf at Heidelberg in 1908.
Hubble classification is circa 1926.
de Vaucoulers circa 1956 and 1959.
Holmberg circa 1956.
Morgan circa 1959.
See
https://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/Sandage/paper.pdf
In some of these classification schemes, the SMC was regarded as the
prototype Type I irregular galaxy, hence the Im classification for
"Irregular Magellanic".
Tidal interactions between it and the Milky Way and between it and the LMC
(there is a bridge between the two referred to as "
The Stream") have
distorted and obscured what structure it might have had in the distant
past or even possibly created new structure.
However, in more recent years, more detailed statistical analyses has been
performed on survey plates and using data collected from radiotelescopes.
Within the chaos of the SMC, there are possible hints of structure.
Maragoudaki et.al. reported in 2001 on the possibility that we may be
witnessing the formation of a bar structure within the SMC. But it
was uncertain at the time whether the observed isodensity is a "genuine
bar".
See
https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/pd...45/aah3136.pdf
Bastian et. al 2008 :-
https://arxiv.org/pdf/0809.1943.pdf
Subramanian et. al 2011 :-
https://arxiv.org/pdf/1109.3980.pdf
Quote:
Originally Posted by Subramanian et. al
These results suggest that the structure of the SMC is spheroidal or slightly ellipsoidal. We propose that the SMC experienced a merger with another dwarf galaxy at ~ 4-5 Gyr ago, and the merger process was completed in another 2-3 Gyr. This resulted in a spheroidal distribution comprising of stars older than 2 Gyr.
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