Woah.

One of the old questions in galactic structure is whether or not there is any meaning in the Hubble arrangement of galactic structure. (Galaxies seem to “evolve” from elliptical in shape to spherical to spiral forms.) People have long speculated that the distribution of galactic shapes indicated some sort of evolutionary trend, but no one could ever explain the mechanism that might cause the trend.

Now a few astronomers have found that if they include dark energy in their models, the Hubble tuning fork falls out of the calculations:

“‘We were completely astonished that our model predicted both the abundance and diversity of galaxy types so precisely,’ said Devereux. ‘It really boosts my confidence in the model,’ Benson said.

The astronomers’ model is underpinned by and endorses the ‘Lambda Cold Dark Matter’ model of the Universe. Here ‘Lambda’ is the mysterious ‘dark energy’ component believed to make up about 72% of the cosmos, with cold dark matter making up another 23%. Just 4% of the Universe consists of the familiar visible or ‘baryonic’ matter that makes up the stars and planets of which galaxies are comprised.”

Read the full article here.

This is just so cool! People have been wondering about this forever.