Exploring Space

GALAXY A galaxy is a massive and  gravitational  bound system which is comprised of stars (like the Sun), stellar remnants (compact stars), an interstellar medium of gas and dust, as well as the important, but misunderstood, dark matter- a matter hypothesized to account for gravitational effects that    appear to be the result of invisible mass. NGC 4414, a typical spiral galaxy in the constellation coma Berenices, is about 55,000 light-years in diameter and approximately 60 million light- year from earth Galaxies can range in size from a dwarf with    as few as ten million stars to massive giant galaxies with a hundred trillion stars. Each star orbits its galaxies own center of mass and it is estimated that are more than 170 billion galaxies in the observable universe. TYPES OF GALAXIES Galaxies can be classified in several ways. The most common is a system developed by Edwin Hubble, which is based on the shapes of galaxies. The most beautiful gala

Cosmology Cosmology is the study of the Universe and its components, how it formed, how its has evolved and what is its future. Modern cosmology grew from ideas before recorded history. Ancient man asked questions such as "What's going on around me?" which then developed into "How does the Universe work?", the key question that cosmology asks. To religious studies, cosmology is about a theistically created world ruled by supernatural forces. To scientists, modern cosmology is about developing the most complete and economical as possible understanding of the Universe that is consistent with observations elucidated by natural forces. We will primarily explore the latter type of cosmology in this course. Many of the earliest recorded scientific observations were about cosmology, and pursue of understanding has continued for over 5000 years. Cosmology has exploded in the last 20 years with radically new information about the structure, origin and evolu

UNIVERSE Universe, the whole cosmic system of matter and energy of which Earth, and therefore the human race, is a part. Humanity has traveled a long road since societies imagined Earth, the Sun, and the Moon as the main objects of creation, with the rest of the universe almost as an afterthought. Today it is known that Earth is only a small ball of rock in a space of unimaginable vastness and that the birth of the solar system was probably only one event among many that occurred against the backdrop of an already mature universe. This humbling lesson has unveiled a remarkable fact, one that endows the minutes particle in the universe with a rich and noble heritage: Events that occurred in the first few minutes of the creation of the universe 13.7 billion years ago turn out to had a profound influence on the birth, life, and death of galaxies, stars, and planets. Indeed a line can be drawn from the forging of the matter of the universe in primal ‘big bang’ to the gathering