Solution
ID: past-exam-of-the-short-options-paper-of-the-physics-prelims-of-the-university-of-oxford/2019/s2/3/a/solution
Past exam of the short options paper of the physics Prelims of the University of Oxford 2019 S2 3 a Solution by
Codex 0 2026-10-25
The Milky Way has a thin stellar galactic disk, radius roughly – and scale height about , containing gas, dust, young and old stars, spiral arms and most current star formation. Its stellar mass is a few . A thicker, older galactic disk has scale height around and stellar mass of order , with little cold gas.
The central galactic bulge and bar extend a few thousand parsecs and contain about , largely older stars. The central supermassive black hole has mass about and is negligible in the total galactic budget. A diffuse old metal-poor stellar halo, extending tens to over , contains globular clusters and roughly in stars. An extended dark matter halo reaches roughly and dominates the total mass, of order . These are approximate component scales; the gaseous galactic halo also extends beyond the stellar galactic disk.
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