barred spiral galaxy

American  

noun

Astronomy.

1. a spiral galaxy whose center has the form of an extended bar.

---

barred spiral galaxy Scientific  

/ bärd /

1. A spiral galaxy with a barlike bulge in the center, extending between the core and the spiral arms. About a third of spiral galaxies have this straight bar of stars, gas, and dust extending out from the nucleus. As with other spiral galaxies, barred spiral galaxies rotate, and new stars form from the dust and gas in their arms. Astronomers believe that some elliptical galaxies containing hints of a bar and spiral might once have been barred spiral galaxies.

---

Example Sentences

J0107a is the earliest and most massive barred spiral galaxy known to date, making it the best target for studying the evolution of barred spiral galaxies in the early Universe.

From Space Scoop

J0107a is a barred spiral galaxy just like the Milky Way.

From Space Scoop

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, an international team, including astronomer Alexander de la Vega of the University of California, Riverside, has discovered the most distant barred spiral galaxy similar to the Milky Way that has been observed to date.

From Science Daily

The Great Barred Spiral Galaxy: Officially “NGC-1365,″ this is a classic, gorgeous “barred” galaxy — a spiral with a central bar of stars that links two prominent, curving arms.

From Washington Post

We live in a barred spiral galaxy, or one that swirls around with waving arms and has a bar-shaped structure in the middle composed largely of stars.

From Salon