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Where are we?
How are galaxies formed?
What is at the center of our galaxy?
What does gravity do in a galaxy?
Dark Matter
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A Galaxy From Above
A galaxy is defined as a collection of stars, gas, and other stellar remnants.
They can contain anywhere from a million stars to a several hundred trillion stars (100,000,000,000,000) or more.
The image is of the whirlpool galaxy, M51.
The Crab Nebula
Galaxies are not simply stars, they also consist of large clouds of gas, dust, or supernova remnants. The crab nebula is
a pulsar wind nebula inside of a supernova shell from when a star exploded.
Deep Space
Our galaxy is not alone. The current estimate for the number of galaxies that we can observe is around 170 billion.
Shown in the above image is NGC 2683. As is clearly visible, there are even more galaxies beyond that. The majority of the
lights in this picture are not simply stars: they are entire galaxies.
Image credit: apod.nasa.gov
Our galaxy is not alone. The current estimate for the number of galaxies that we can observe is around 170 billion.
Shown in the above image is NGC 2683. As is clearly visible, there are even more galaxies beyond that. The majority of the
lights in this picture are not simply stars: they are entire galaxies.
Image credit: apod.nasa.gov