Galaxies are giant group of stars. Typical galaxies range from dwarfs with as few as ten million stars, to giants with a hundred trillion stars, all orbiting the galaxy’s center of mass. Besides simple stars, they typically contain various types of star clusters and nebulae. Although galaxies are vast, they are so far away that they look like fuzzy clouds. It was only in 1916 that the astronomers realized that galaxies are huge star groups. They are different types of galaxies like, spiral galaxy, elliptical galaxy, irregular galaxy and barred galaxy. In the night sky of Earth’s southern hemisphere, two blurry shapes can be seen with the naked eye. These are the large and small Magellanic clouds- the irregular galaxies lying relatively near to the Milky way. Besides the milky way and the Magellanic clouds, the only galaxy that can be seen from earth with the naked eye is the Andromeda galaxy. Some galaxies are isolated “Island universes” which float lonely through an otherwise empty region of the universe. We live in a giant spiral galaxy, THE MILKY WAY.
THE GALAXIES
