What is a Proto-Galaxy?

What are its properties, size, structure, etc.

I'll ask more questions as responses are given.

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RussT
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Everything is, as it should be, otherwise, it wouldn't be!

This link should provide plenty of answers: http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george...galaxies%3F%22

CJ

The link came up empty for me.

Here's a short answer for RussT:

At some point before a collection of gas becomes a galaxy, it has collapsed enough that it is inevitible that it will soon be a galaxy. From that moment until it first appears as a galaxy, it is a proto galaxy.

The range of size and mass of a protogalaxy is as variable as (and in the same scale as) the size and mass of galaxies. There probably isn't a definite boundary as to the outer 'edge' of a protogalaxy and inter-protogalactic space, so the actual dimensions would be hard to give.

We haven't observed a lot of things that you'd call protogalaxies, because the big galaxies all went through that stage before z=6.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Not sure why it's working for me.
http://www.astro.caltech.edu/~george...A-protogal.pdf

CJ

Both URLs work fine here.

I'm still getting blank pages "done" by Firefox.

Edit: Doh! My kids have removed acrobat reader from my registry in the big disk cleanup. I can see it now. Yes, this is a good paper on the topic.

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Forming opinions as we speak