AST-502beginner

Galactic Disk, Bulge & Halo: Structures & Vocabulary

The Milky Way is not a uniform swarm of stars. Decomposing the Milky Way into components lets astronomers reconstruct galaxy assembly, chemical enrichment, spiral structure, disk heating, and dark-matter distribution.

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Galactic Disk, Bulge & Halo: Structures & Vocabulary

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Prerequisites

AST-501Galactic Disk, Bulge & Halo: Foundations→

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AST-503Galactic Disk, Bulge & Halo: Physical Mechanisms→

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The Milky Way is not a uniform swarm of stars.

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Different components reflect different formation histories.

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Star counts, distances, proper motions, spectroscopy, gas mapping, and globular-cluster orbits reveal distinct spatial and kinematic populations.

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