Astronomy Wonders

O ur wonderful universe is full of undiscovered scenes. Looking at the sky at night, stars are tiny speks in the sea of night. Zooming into the great beyond looking back at our universe from a distance, galaxies themselves become like tiny speks, like the sand of a beach, unmeasurable.  Below, we will be looking at some stunning images of galaxies from a side view. We will focus our attention on spiral galaxies. Keep in mind that there are four main types of galaxies. Ellipticals, irregular, quasars and spirals. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, is a spiral,  like a pinwheel, with lots of gas, dust and young stars. In fact, most spiral galaxies are known to be among the brightest in the universe, except for quasars, which are compact objects emitting astronomical amounts of energy. Thankfully there are none near by. A galaxy is an enormous collection of gas, dust, asteroids, planets and stars all held together by gravity. Our planet Earth is part of the solar system which consis...

  Image Credit & Copyright:  Robert Gendler Image Source: https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap181217.html The Andromeda Galaxy in the Night Sky The Andromeda Galaxy, also called M31, is far beyond the stars in our Galaxy. At 2.5 million light years from Earth, is still the closet Galaxy to our own. Its name, Andromeda, originates by its geographical location in the sky where we can find it, in the Constellation of Andromeda. One method some astronomers use to find this galaxy is by jumping from star to star. Sky charts might seem difficult to read for some people because they represent the skies on a much smaller scale than the real thing, and beginners often find it confusing to relate to the stars they see in the sky and those on paper or a screen. One example is the Square of Pegasus, in the lower right of this top chart, is much larger in the sky than it appears on the chart. It is essential to have dark skies. For this you would have to be away from any city light...