Galaxy

By: Seira Kristen T. Alomia

STE 8 Darwin
What is a Galaxy?
A galaxy is a huge
collection of gas, dust,
and billions of stars and
their solar systems, all
held together by gravity.

The word galaxy actually comes from the Greek word

galaxias, which means “Milky”. A reference to the Milky
Way galaxy that contains our Solar System
System.. Galaxies
range in size from dwarfs with less than a hundred
million stars to the largest galaxies known –
supergiants with one hundred trillion stars, each orbiting
its galaxy's center of mass. Supermassive black holes
are a common feature at the centers of galaxies. The
Milky Way’s central core contains a supermassive black
hole. It is commonly referred to as Sagittarius A star.
Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our
Solar System
System.. W
With
ith the name describing the
galaxy's appearance from EarthEarth:: a hazy band of
light seen in the night sky formed from stars that
cannot be individually distinguished by the
naked eye
eye.. The term Milky Way is a translation
from Greek meaning "milky circle". Scientists
estimate that the Universe is about 13.7 billion
years old while the Milky Way is about 13.6
billion years old. Which shows that it’s almost as
old as the Universe itself.
Who discovered galaxies?
Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light
into individual stars with his telescope in 1610.
Until the early 1920s, most astronomers
thought that the Milky Way contained all the
stars in the Universe
Universe.. The first person to
identify galaxies was Edwin Hubble, the
American astronomer. His observations
showed that the Milky Way is just one of many
galaxies. He created the Hubble Sequence in
1926, which is still used today. Edwin Hubble
 How did galaxies form?
The formation of the first galaxies is still up for debate amongst
astronomers. However, astronomers know that galaxies began
to form soon after the Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago, but they
don't yet fully understand the process by which they ended up
as we see them today. There are different theories on how these
disk-like distributions of stars develop from a cloud of matter.
However, at present, none of them exactly predicts the results of
observation. Although many of the galaxies in the universe were
formed through collisions of raw matter with other already
existing galaxies.
How many galaxies are there?
There are many galaxies besides ours, there are so many
that we can’t even count them all. But some scientists think
there could be as many as more than 170 billion galaxies in
the observable universe. All of the galaxies can actually be
classified from each other based on their appearance.
Astronomers sort galaxies into three main types by their
shapes: spirals
spirals,, ellipticals
ellipticals,, and irregulars
irregulars,, and further
divide them into subtypes based on their particular
characteristics.
3 Main Types of Galaxies

Spirals Ellipticals Irregulars

 Can galaxies collide?
Sometimes galaxies get too close and smash
into each other. Our Milky Way galaxy will
someday bump into Andromeda, the closest
galaxy to our own galaxy, being around 2.5
million light years away. But don’t worry. It won’t
happen for about five billion years. But even if it
happened tomorrow, you might not notice.
Galaxies are so big and spread out at the ends
that even though galaxies bump into each other,
the planets and solar systems often don’t get
close to colliding.
What is a galaxy cluster?
The dark matter comes together to form
groups of galaxies. Gravitational force
pulls the galaxies so they are connected,
forming groups of large numbers of
galaxies known as groups, clusters, and
superclusters. Our Milky Way, for instance,
is in the Local Group
Group,, a galaxy group that
also includes the Andromeda galaxy and
its satellites. The Local Group, part of the
larger Virgo Cluster, both lie within the
larger Virgo Supercluster
Supercluster..
 Are galaxies still forming?
There is no evidence for modern protogalaxy formation.
However, baby galaxies as young as 100 million years old were
seen by NASA’s Galaxy Evolution Explorer satellite. The closest is
2 billion light-years away, suggesting new large galaxies are
still being created today, which also says that our universe is still
forming. in 1920s, Edwin Hubble also found that all galaxies are
moving away from us. Not only were all galaxies are receding
away from us, but they were receding away from each other.
The spaces between galaxies were growing; therefore we live in
an expanding universe
universe..
The observable portion of the universe is approximately 90
billion light-years across. We do not have the necessary
knowledge of physics to understand the extreme conditions of the
earliest moments of the universe and galaxies, especially when it
comes to figuring out how the universe came into existence in the
first place. But overall, the galaxy that we live in is interesting
enough, but when you think about that there is the possibility of
there being trillions more out there in the universe, it does make
you wonder what else is going on out there. And this is before
even contemplating the thought that there might be more than
one universe too, which can all be a little overwhelming!
Questions
#1: The word galaxy actually
comes from the Greek word
"galaxies", which means?
A. "A hazy band of light"

B. "Milky"

C. "Milky circle"
#2: What is a common feature
at the centers of galaxies?
A. Star

B. Nebula

C. Supermassive black hole

#3: Who was the first
person/people to identify
galaxies?
A. Edwin Hubble

B. Greeks

C. Galileo Galilei
#4: Approximately, how many
galaxies are there?
A. 160 billion

B. 170 billion

C. 185 billion