A spiral galaxy is a certain kind of galaxy originally described by Edwin Hubble

in his 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae[1] and, as such, forms part of the Hu
bble sequence. Spiral galaxies consist of a flat, rotating disc containing stars
, gas and dust, and a central concentration of stars known as the bulge. These a
re surrounded by a much fainter halo of stars, many of which reside in globular
clusters.
Spiral galaxies are named for the spiral structures that extend from the center
into the disk. The spiral arms are sites of ongoing star formation and are brigh
ter than the surrounding disk because of the young, hot OB stars that inhabit th
em.
Roughly two-thirds of all spirals are observed to have an additional component i
n the form of a bar-like structure,[2] extending from the central bulge, at the
ends of which the spiral arms begin. The proportion of barred spirals relative t
o their barless cousins has changed over the history of the Universe, with only
about 10% containing bars about 8 billion years ago, to roughly a quarter 2.5 bi
llion years ago, until present, where over two-thirds of the galaxies in the vis
ible universe (Hubble volume) have bars
Spiral arms[edit]
NGC 1300 in infrared light.
Spiral arms are regions of stars that extend from the center of spiral and barre
d spiral galaxies. These long, thin regions resemble a spiral and thus give spir
al galaxies their name. Naturally, different classifications of spiral galaxies
have distinct arm-structures. Sc and SBc galaxies, for instance, have very "loos
e" arms, whereas Sa and SBa galaxies have tightly wrapped arms (with reference t
o the Hubble sequence). Either way, spiral arms contain many young, blue stars (
due to the high mass density and the high rate of star formation), which make th
e arms so bright.