Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena

Galaxies are the fundamental structural units of the universe, and understanding how they assemble from gas and dark matter, grow through star formation, and transform over billions of years sits at the heart of modern astrophysics. Researchers draw on large observational surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, alongside increasingly sophisticated computer simulations, to trace how ordinary matter and invisible dark matter interact to produce the diverse populations of galaxies we observe today. Central to this work are questions about the role of supermassive black holes and quasars — episodes of intense accretion that can release enough energy to suppress star formation across an entire galaxy. Key open problems include precisely how feedback from black holes and stellar explosions regulates galaxy growth, and why the observed abundance of galaxies diverges so sharply from what simple dark matter models predict.

Works

237,951

Total citations

4,653,124

Keywords

GalaxiesCosmologyBlack HolesStellar PopulationsStar FormationDark Matter