Galaxies

How many Local Groups comprise the Virgo Supercluster?

About 160. Remember Natalie's Analogy

How many stars does the Milky Way contain?

About 200 billion

How many light years out from the center are we?

About 27,000

How many Super Clusteres are in the universe?

About 270,000. They are connected by a web of filaments.

How many galaxies are in our Local Group?

About 39. Remember Natalie's Analogy

What is Dark Matter thought to be? Dark Energy?

Dark Matter is thought to be the material that holds the entire universe together. Dark energy causes the universe to accelerate and counteracts Dark Matter.

True or false: ALL galaxies are zooming away from each other.

False: the ones in our Local Group are not zooming away from the Milky Way galaxy.

What did Dr. Andrea Ghez discover?

That there is a black hole at the center of the Milky Way that has a mass of 4.1 million solar masses. It was observed by an infrared camera, and a multitude of stars were seen orbiting around a blank spot.

Which galaxies are thought to be the oldest?

Large elliptical galaxies. They are thought to have been formed by the merging of smaller galaxies.

What did Vera Rubin discover in the 1960s?

That stars orbiting around the center of the galaxy travel at about the same velocity, rather than how planets closer to the sun travel faster than the outer planets. This is thought to be due to Dark Matter keeping the velocities approximately equal.

What did Edwin Hubble discover in 1924?

That there are other galaxies in the universe. He knew this because the light from those galaxies was red shifted.

How many galaxies are estimated to be in the observable universe?

110 billion

What is the largest spiral galaxy next to ours?

Andromeda. It has twice the diameter of the Milky Way and about 1 trillion stars.

What do most galaxies have at their centers?

Black holes.

What is the galaxy we live in called?

The Milky Way

What shape is the Milky Way, and how many light years across and thick is it?

The Milky Way is a spiral. It is 100,000 light years across and 16,000 light years thick

What is cosmology?

The study of the structure, function, and evolution of the large universe.