What dynamical property, related to stellar motion, is responsible for maintaining the shape of a triaxial elliptical galaxy?
Answer
The anisotropy of stellar motions.
The triaxial shape is maintained by the anisotropy of stellar motions, where the random velocities of stars are systematically different when measured along the galaxy's various axes.
Related Questions
How is the numerical classification index for an elliptical galaxy calculated using its observed major axis (a) and minor axis (b)?What viewing orientation would cause an intrinsically spherical E0 galaxy to potentially be misclassified as an elongated type like E5 or E6?Which range of elliptical classifications (E0-E7) is increasingly suspected by modern astronomers to consist of misclassified lenticular galaxies (S0)?What is the current dominant model describing the three-dimensional shape of most bright elliptical galaxies?What dynamical property, related to stellar motion, is responsible for maintaining the shape of a triaxial elliptical galaxy?What phenomenon occurs when the orientation or elongation of a galaxy's isophotes changes as the measurement moves outward from the core?What feature suggests the presence of a supermassive black hole or dense stellar remnants in the core of massive ellipticals like M87?How does the central surface brightness profile of most ellipticals typically deviate from the prediction of the de Vaucouleurs' law near the very center?In terms of scale, how much larger are dwarf elliptical galaxies physically compared to the most massive globular clusters?If astronomers assume isotropy (equal random stellar motions in all directions), what critical uncertainty remains when trying to constrain the exact 3D shape of an elliptical galaxy from observed velocity data?