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Can galaxies change their shapes?

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Minor mergers (i.e. where one galaxy is much larger than the other) simply disrupt the smaller one without changing the shape of the larger (but may increase its star formation rate for a while). Major mergers, where galaxies are of comparable size, can completely "wreck" the galaxies. read more

Major mergers, where galaxies are of comparable size, can completely "wreck" the galaxies. If the merging galaxies are spirals, they can sometimes settle down into a larger spiral galaxy, possibly with an enhanced central bulge. But sometimes, depending among other things on their orientation prior to merging, they become ellipticals instead. read more

Yes, they can. Here’s a simplified list as to how the evolution of galaxies takes place. Initial stages — Our universe started out as a complex soup of random celestial objects moving here and there. As time progressed, the mutual gravitation pulled all of these celestial bodies together to coalesce into an irregular galaxy. read more

So that how galaxies change their shape in general over time ( actually it is even more complex, but let's leave it at that for the moment). However galaxies can change shape also without collisions. As i already said, The spiral arms are not too different from the empty areas between them. read more

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