The Structure of the Universe


     The universe has a certain structure that everything follows. Everything comes in groups that are part of a larger group, which is part of a larger group. The best way to think of this is to imagine the universe as a planet like Earth. The universe is the planet. The planet is covered with bodies of land or water, which would be super clusters. Those are then broken down into continents, which are clusters. Inside that are the countries, which are local clusters. Inside the clusters are the states or provinces, which are galaxies, and inside that are the cities, which are solar systems. If you wanted, you could go even farther in, breaking the individual parts of the solar system, like the planet systems (each individual planet, it's moons and rings being one planet system) and naming them neighborhoods. The universe is just like that. I'll break this down from smallest to largest.


     You begin the overlook of the universe with the solar system. All solar systems follow a basic floor plan. In the basic floor plan, the star sits at the center, with the planets, if any, orbiting the star. The planets have their own little systems, with any moons or rings orbiting the planets. The solar system also consists of comets and usually asteroids. Comets and asteroids are left over from the construction of the solar system. The majority of the comets orbit the star in one big cloud surrounding the star about 1 light year out. This cloud has been named the Oort cloud in our solar system. There are, of course, a few solar systems that don't follow this floor plan. There are probably a few stars out there without planets, but they are still considered solar systems.

stronger batteries htc incredible . mugen akku Atrix 4G 1900 mah      Solar systems congregate in large groups to form galaxies. Galaxies are larger groups of stars, nebulae, and solar systems. There are a few general shapes that galaxies will take. They will form spiral galaxies, barred spiral galaxies (like ours), elliptical galaxies, and irregular galaxies. Spiral galaxies look like one big spiral. Spiral galaxies have a large bulge in the center, and has arms that spread out from the center. It is theorized that a quasar lies at the center of spiral and barred spiral galaxies. I will discuss quasars in the black holes section, so if you want to read about them, just click on the link at the top of the page. Barred spiral galaxies are just like spiral galaxies except with one exception. They have a bar going across the center. (This is one reason why I like astronomy over other fields of science, when we name things, we give them names that make sense, and we give them names in english, not Latin) Our galaxy is probably a barred spiral galaxy, but since we can't see it, no one is totally sure. Irregular galaxies have very little structure, they are just a large group of stars, there are very few similarities between different irregular galaxies. The other type
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