6. Masses of spherical stellar systems¶
Now that we have covered the theoretical underpinnings of gravitational potentials, orbits, and equilibria of spherical systems, we apply these in this final chapter of the first part to learn about the mass distributions of real stellar systems. Even though most galaxies are far from spherical, we can use the tools we studied in the previous chapters to learn a surprising amount about the overall mass distribution of galaxies and, in particular, about the total dark matter content and its distribution within galaxies and clusters of galaxies
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