Glossary term: Galactic Bar
Description: Many spiral galaxies have a bar, a feature in their central region where most of the stars, gas, and dust follow a straight bar feature. The spiral arms of the galaxy begin at the outer edges of this bar. Spiral galaxies with a bar are called barred spiral galaxies. The Milky Way is thought to be a barred spiral galaxy.
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Term and definition status: This term and its definition have been approved by a research astronomer and a teacher
The OAE Multilingual Glossary is a project of the IAU Office of Astronomy for Education (OAE) in collaboration with the IAU Office of Astronomy Outreach (OAO). The terms and definitions were chosen, written and reviewed by a collective effort from the OAE, the OAE Centers and Nodes, the OAE National Astronomy Education Coordinators (NAECs) and other volunteers. You can find a full list of credits here. All glossary terms and their definitions are released under a Creative Commons CC BY-4.0 license and should be credited to "IAU OAE".
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In Other Languages
- Arabic: الشريط المجري
- German: Galaktischer Balken
- French: Barre galactique
- Italian: Barra galattica
- Korean: 은하막대부
- Simplified Chinese: 星系棒
- Traditional Chinese: 星系棒
Related Media
A visible light image of the Andromeda Galaxy
Caption: The Andromeda Galaxy viewed in visible light. Like our Milky Way, Andromeda is a barred spiral galaxy. Here we can see its bright core and spiral disk. The glow from the stars in the disk is interrupted by lanes of dust that form part of its spiral structure.
Andromeda is the largest galaxy in the Local Group of galaxies that includes the Milky Way.
To the left of the core and just above the disk we see the dwarf galaxy M32 and to the right and below the disk we see the dwarf galaxy M110. These are both satellite galaxies of the Andromeda Galaxy.
Credit: Torben Hansen
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License: CC-BY-2.0 Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic icons
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