Galaxies!

This is another guest post from my nine-year-old daughter, Lilian. Lilian loves astronomy and was excited to do this one! -Dorian

By Lilian Satterlee

When you look up at the night sky, you might only see tens of stars in the area of your galaxy. But all you see is not all there is! Our galaxy has not only 50 stars, but billions. We live in a galaxy called the Milky Way, a spiral galaxy with hundreds of thousands of billions of stars.

Our Milky Way Galaxy



IC 1011, largest known galaxy

 As big as it is, it is only a speck compared to this giant: IC 10-11 is the largest galaxy ever found. It is 60 times larger than our Milky Way.
M 87 is one of the oldest galaxies in the known universe.

M87

Our neighbor, Andromeda

Andromeda is our nearest neighbor. All galaxies are different, unique, big and everywhere.


How Galaxies Formed!
It takes gravity to make stars and pull them together. Early galaxies were a big mess; lumpy clumps of stars, dust and gas. Today, galaxies are neat and organized, and gravity is what makes that happen.

So remember, galaxies are made of billions of stars and there are billions of galaxies!