银河系的形成和演化

银河系是宇宙中数以百亿计星系中的一员.自威廉.赫歇尔以来,人们对银河系结构和运动状态的认识已有200多年历史,而有关银河系起源和演化的探索则只是在最近半个多世纪内才成为天文学的研究热点.文章在简述银河系认识史的基础上,对有关银河系形成和演化这一重要天体物理问题做了概要的评述,其中包括银河系厚盘的发现及其可能的形成机制.

Formation and evolution of the Milky Way galaxy

The Milky Way galaxy is one of more than ten billions of galaxies in our universe.The structure and kinematics of the galaxy have been investigated for more than 200 years since the work of the famous British astronomer W.Herschel,but studies on its formation and evolution only attracted attention from astrophysicists some 50 odd years ago.In this paper the historical development of our knowledge of the galaxy is reviewed,followed by a brief discussion of the major astrophysical issues of its formation and evolution mechanism,including how the galactic thick disc was confirmed and its possible formation mechanism.