Beyond our Solar System

 

Beyond our Solar system

The stars you see at night are mostly from our galaxy - the Milky Way. 

 

The Milky Way is just one of many millions of galaxies in the Universe.  Some of the galaxies are so far away that they appear in the sky as small fuzzy points of light.

 

Hubble ultra Deep Field

Hubble Telescope

The Hubble Ultra Deep Field is the result of over four months of staring at just one small patch of sky.

The result of the observation was an image containing an estimated 10,000 new galaxies.

Hubble Deep Field (full mosaic) released by NASA on January 15, 1996.

Credit: R. Williams (STScI), the Hubble Deep Field Team and NASA

Original image available here: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/1996/01/image/e

 

🔬 Knowledge Check: Solar System & Beyond

Test your understanding of the objects in our space and the vast distances between them.

1. Which object sits at the centre of our Solar System?

• The Earth
• The Milky Way
• The Sun

2. What is a "light year" a measurement of?

• Time
• Distance
• Brightness

3. What is the name of the galaxy that contains our Solar System?

• Andromeda
• The Milky Way
• Orion

4. Which of these best describes a constellation?

• A group of stars forming a pattern
• A collection of billions of galaxies
• The path a planet takes around the Sun

5. Which statement about the universe is true according to the page?

• It contains only one galaxy.
• It is everything that exists, including all space and time.
• It is smaller than the Milky Way.

Click to Reveal Answers

1. The Sun (Everything in the solar system orbits this star).
2. Distance (It is the distance light travels in one year, about 9.5 trillion km).
3. The Milky Way (Our solar system is just one small part of this massive galaxy).
4. A group of stars forming a pattern (These shapes have been named by humans over centuries).
5. It is everything that exists (The universe encompasses all of space, matter, and galaxies).

Tags: Solar System. Solar System and Beyond, Hubble, Deep field, Telescope, Galaxy, Milkyway, where is the sun in the solar system, the sun in our solar system, interactive solar system, mars satellites