SINCE 1828
elliptical galaxy
nounDefinition of elliptical galaxy
: a galaxy that has a generally elliptical shape and that has no apparent internal structure or spiral arms
— called also elliptical
— compare spiral galaxyExamples of elliptical galaxy in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
And the object's current shape won't last; in a few hundred million years, the cores of the two original galaxies will merge, and NGC 3256 will become a large elliptical galaxy. — Mike Wall, Space.com, "Galaxy Distorted by Long-Ago Collision Glows in Gorgeous Hubble Photo," 1 June 2018 Taken together, these observations revealed a blazar – a giant elliptical galaxy with a spinning supermassive black hole at its core. — Author: Sarah Kaplan, Anchorage Daily News, "In a cosmic first, scientists detect ‘ghost particles’ from a distant galaxy," 12 July 2018 Taken together, these observations revealed a blazar - a giant elliptical galaxy with a spinning supermassive black hole at its core. — Sarah Kaplan, chicagotribune.com, "In a cosmic first, scientists detect 'ghost particles' from a distant galaxy," 12 July 2018 For example, astrophysicists believed that when two delicate disk galaxies like our Milky Way collide and merge, the process would wad them up into a single blobby elliptical galaxy. — Adrian Cho, Science | AAAS, "Galaxy simulations are at last matching reality—and producing surprising insights into cosmic evolution," 30 May 2018 Thirteen million light years away, a handful of relatively small galaxies revolve in a disk around the larger elliptical galaxy Centaurus A. There's nothing unusual about a collection of small galaxies orbiting a large one. — Kiona N. Smith, Ars Technica, "New observations of galaxies challenge the standard cosmological model," 1 Feb. 2018 In 2009, a combination of optical and radio telescope observations produced this image of a spiral galaxy and an elliptical galaxy gradually becoming one, 13 million light years from Earth. — TIME.com, "The human species is ever-changing and with it our view of the universe.," 25 Oct. 2017These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'elliptical galaxy.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.
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