Worksheet 11.

7 The discovery of galaxies

Read the information below, then answer the questions that follow.

The Sun is just one of billions of stars that make up the Milky Way. This is our
galaxy.
A century ago, there was a big debate among astronomers. Was there anything
else in the Universe?
People had studied cloudy patches of stars in the night sky. They called these
‘nebulae’, meaning ‘clouds’. Some people thought they were inside the Milky
Way. Others thought they were outside.
To decide who was right, it was necessary to measure how far away they
were. That’s difficult without a very long tape measure!
In 1912, Vesto Slipher spotted exploding stars in some nebulae. They were
very faint, and he realised that this meant that they were a long way away,
far beyond the Milky Way. He guessed that each of the nebulae was another
galaxy, similar to the Milky Way.
Now we know that the Milky Way is just one of many billions of galaxies that
make up the Universe.

1 What is a galaxy?

2 What is the name of our galaxy?

3 In the nineteenth century, astronomers observed distant objects, which they called nebulae.

a What does a nebula look like?

b What does the word ‘nebulae’ mean?

4 Vesto Slipher observed exploding stars in some of the nebulae.

a Why were these exploding stars very dim?

Copyright Cambridge University Press 2012 Cambridge Checkpoint Science 7 1

 Worksheet 11.7

b What did Vesto Slipher deduce from this?

5 Imagine that you are an astronomer who worked 100 years ago. You might be very surprised
by some of the discoveries that astronomers have made since then. Write a short paragraph,
outlining these discoveries.

Copyright Cambridge University Press 2012 Cambridge Checkpoint Science 7 2