Evidence from Intrinsic Shapes for Two Families of Elliptical Galaxies

Preprint
Publisher Website
Google Scholar
  • 10 January 1996
Abstract
Bright elliptical galaxies have a markedly different distribution of Hubble types than faint ellipticals; the division occurs near M_B = -20 and bright ellipticals are rounder on average. The apparent shapes of galaxies in both groups are clustered around a narrow peak, E1.5 in the case of the bright ellipticals and E3 for the fainter ones. The Hubble-type distribution of the faint ellipticals is consistent with oblate symmetry, but the oblate hypothesis fails for the bright galaxies. However a distribution of triaxial intrinsic shapes can successfully reproduce the apparent shape data for either group. Our results provide further evidence that elliptical galaxies should be divided into two, morphologically distinct families.

This publication has 0 references indexed in Scilit: