Lenticular galaxies
A lenticular galaxy is a type of galaxy intermediate between an elliptical and a spiral galaxy in galaxy morphological classification schemes. Lenticular galaxies are disc galaxies (like spiral galaxies) that have used up or lost most of their interstellar matter and therefore have very little ongoing star formation. They may, however, retain significant dust in their disks. As a result, they consist mainly of aging stars (like elliptical galaxies). Because of their ill-defined spiral arms, if they are inclined face-on it is often difficult to distinguish between them and elliptical galaxies. Despite the morphological differences, lenticular and elliptical galaxies share common properties like spectral features and scaling relations. Both can be considered early-type galaxies that are passively evolving, at least in the local part of the Universe.
Lenticular galaxies are unique in that they have a visible disk component as well as a prominent bulge component. They have much higher bulge-to-disk ratios than typical spirals and do not have the canonical spiral arm structure of late-type galaxies, yet may exhibit a central bar. This bulge dominance can be seen in the axis ratio (i.e. the ratio between the observed minor and major axial of a disk galaxy) distribution of a lenticular galaxy sample. The distribution for lenticular galaxies rises steadily in the range 0.25 to 0.85 whereas the distribution for spirals is essentially flat in that same range. Larger axial ratios can be explained by observing face-on disk galaxies or by having a sample of spheroidal (bulge-dominated) galaxies. Imagine looking at two disk galaxies edge-on, one with a bulge and one without a bulge. The galaxy with a prominent bulge will have a larger edge-on axial ratio compared to the galaxy without a bulge based on the definition of axial ratio. Thus a sample of disk galaxies with prominent spheroidal components will have more galaxies at larger axial ratios. The fact that the lenticular galaxy distribution rises with increasing observed axial ratio implies that lenticulars are dominated by a central bulge component.
Lenticular galaxies are often considered to be a poorly understood transition state between spiral and elliptical galaxies, which results in their intermediate placement on the Hubble sequence. This results from lenticulars having both prominent disk and bulge components. The disk component is usually featureless, which precludes a classification system similar to spiral galaxies. As the bulge component is usually spherical, elliptical galaxy classifications are also unsuitable. Lenticular galaxies are thus divided into subclasses based upon either the amount of dust present or the prominence of a central bar. The classes of lenticular galaxies with no bar are S01, S02, and S03 where the subscripted numbers indicate the amount of dust absorption in the disk component; the corresponding classes for lenticulars with a central bar are SB01, SB02, and SB03.
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