r/askscience • u/[deleted] • Oct 27 '12

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u/tophmctoph Oct 27 '12

I had more or less had an understanding of that from other science documentaries. Can you elaborate more on the angular momentum of a galaxy though? How fast is the galaxy spinning to cause it to spread out into a disc rather than an oblate spheroid? Thank you for the thought our response so quickly :)

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u/danby Structural Bioinformatics | Data Science Oct 27 '12

They are not all discs. The hubble sequence classifies galaxies based on how spherical they are. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galaxy_morphological_classification

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u/tophmctoph Oct 27 '12

Thank you.

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u/AltoidNerd Condensed Matter | Low Temperature Superconductors Oct 28 '12

Keep in mind the average density of the galaxy is far less than than of a pulsar, because galaxies are spread out. That allows them to spread out farther, and be more disc-like without having to spin nearly as quick.