At first glance, Messier 63 (M63 for short or aka “the Sunflower Galaxy”) appears to be a break from the traditional spiral structure of galaxies and represent a new type of galaxy termed a “flocculent” class. It was thought that the stars formed clumpy clouds gathered together as clumps, like strands of wool form clumps of wool – even on the sheep. In chemical engineering, we often use agents that make particles suspended in a fluid clump together to form larger particles ,so that gravity can overcome the suspension and separate the particles from the fluid. I like to thing that the word flocculate (or its sorter “floc”) comes from the word “flock”, as in a flock of sheep,
The Sunflower Galaxy and Dynamic Complexities
