THE GOLDEN RATIO AND THE GOLDEN SPIRAL IN ASTRONOMY

Many galaxies have a shape similar to that of a golden spiral. Here are some examples:

1. M51A – it is the classic example of a spiral galaxy. This is the largest and the most famous vortex galaxy in the Boreal constellation of Canes Venatici. It was discovered by Charles Messier on October 13, 1773.

2. NGC 4414 – it is a majestic spiral galaxy, which was photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope.

3. NGC 1300 – it is a barred spiral galaxy and it was photographed by the Hubble telescope. In the barred spiral galaxies the arms start from a kind of bar that crosses the bulge (nucleus of the galaxy), unlike what happens in simple spiral galaxies, in which the arms start directly from the nucleus of the galaxy.

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It should be underlined that one of the many discoveries made by the Kepler space telescope involved precisely the golden ratio. The discovery concerns a group of four variable stars, each pulsates at frequencies characterized by a ratio whose value is very close to the irrational number 0.61803398875..., which is the inverse of the golden number φ = 1.61803398875 ...

Furthermore, it is interesting to note that the golden ratio is also present within our Solar System. In fact, it can be found, approximately, in the ratio between the maximum distance of the planet Mars from the Sun (~ 2.492 x 10⁸ km) and the maximum distance of the Earth from the Sun (~ 1.521 x 10⁸ km) and again in the ratio between the period of revolution of the Earth (365 days) and the period of revolution of the planet Venus (225 days).