Quote:
Originally Posted by stephend
Scientific American has some good info on spiral arms:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=...tes-and&page=2
I like the bit where it says computer simulations spontaneously generate spiral arms, too, but no-one can figure out why it happens inside the computer, either.
It appears there is not much difference in star density in the arms and in the spaces between the arms, just enough to be visible. |
This is a very informative article..
The results of the simulation (formation of spiral arms as density waves) clearly show that our basic understanding of gravity force and the mass distribution on the galactic scale is correct and that there are no other "mysterious" forces involved...