Flocculent
Woolly, fluffy; used to refer to certain galaxies that have a woolly appearance.
Focal Length ...
A flocculent spiral with ragged spiral arms.
Transient Spirals
In this scenario the spiral arms come and go. This behavior is seen in computer simulations of galactic disks. It is possible that all three theories may be correct.
The end product is dark to golden brown, partially decomposed, granular and flocculent, and has an earthy odor when fresh.
Most photogenic are the grand-design two-armed spiral galaxies such as M51, but far more common are ragged or flocculent spirals made up of many short arms.
Spiral structure has been divided into grand-design and flocculent types, depending on the level of organization. The Elmegreens (1982 MNRAS 201, 1021; 1987, ApJ 314, 3) use an index that distinguished these, still on a purely visual level.
Grand design spirals (e.g., M51) have long, narrow, well defined arms, while those galaxies with short, fragmented arms are termed flocculent spirals.
This is in contrast to galaxies in which the spiral arms are less well defined, often called flocculent spirals.
Such galaxies are called flocculent. Galaxies are labeled according to the Hubble classification scheme. Some disk galaxies are not perfectly flat but will have a bend in them, these are referred to as warps.
This results in a chaotic, ragged and weak spiral structure. This matches some galaxies (called the "flocculent" spirals), but not the so-called "grand design" spirals where there are two or three large clearly defined spirals present.
 See also: Disk, Galaxy, Galaxies, Density, Rotation
  
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