Editing Galactic bulge (section)

{{Short description|Tightly packed group of stars within a larger formation}}
[[File:Artist's impression of the central bulge of the Milky Way.jpg|thumb|upright=1.8|Artist's impression of the central bulge of the [[Milky Way]]<ref>{{cite news|title=The Peanut at the Heart of our Galaxy|url=http://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1339/|access-date=14 September 2013|newspaper=ESO Press Release}}</ref> ]]

In [[astronomy]], a '''galactic bulge''' (or simply '''bulge''') is a tightly packed group of [[star]]s within a larger [[star formation]]. The term almost exclusively refers to the group of stars found near the [[Galaxy#Center|center]] of most [[spiral galaxy|spiral galaxies]] (see ''[[galactic spheroid]]''). Bulges were historically thought to be [[elliptical galaxies]] that happened to have a [[Galactic disc|disk of stars]] around them, but high-resolution images using the [[Hubble Space Telescope]] have revealed that many bulges lie at the heart of a spiral galaxy. It is now thought that there are at least two types of bulges: bulges that are like ellipticals and bulges that are like spiral galaxies.