How do galaxies work?
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How do galaxies work?
A galaxy is a huge collection of gas, dust, and billions of stars and their solar systems, all held together by gravity. It’s a small part of the Milky Way Galaxy. A galaxy is a huge collection of gas, dust, and billions of stars and their solar systems. A galaxy is held together by gravity.
How does our solar system move through the galaxy?
The Solar System moves through the galaxy with about a 60° angle between the galactic plane and the planetary orbital plane. The Sun appears to move up-and-down and in-and-out with respect to the rest of the galaxy as it revolves around the Milky Way.
How does the solar system work in space?
The sun’s gravity pulls the planet toward the sun, which changes the straight line of direction into a curve. This keeps the planet moving in an orbit around the sun. Because of the sun’s gravitational pull, all the planets in our solar system orbit around it.
What’s the difference between galaxy and solar system?
A galaxy is a system of solar systems and other stars. The galaxy that contains the Earth and its solar system is called the Milky Way. This galaxy is thought to contain more than 200 billion different stars. Solar systems orbit around their galaxies just as planets orbit around their suns.
What makes up a galaxy?
Galaxies are sprawling systems of dust, gas, dark matter, and anywhere from a million to a trillion stars that are held together by gravity. Nearly all large galaxies are thought to also contain supermassive black holes at their centers.
Does our galaxy move through space?
The Milky Way itself is moving through the vastness of intergalactic space. Our galaxy belongs to a cluster of nearby galaxies, the Local Group, and together we are easing toward the center of our cluster at a leisurely 25 miles a second.
Where in the galaxy is our solar system?
Our solar system orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy at about 515,000 mph (828,000 kph). We’re in one of the galaxy’s four spiral arms.
Is the Milky Way a galaxy or solar system?
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy’s appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.