The word intergalactic in astronomy may mean different things. It can be associated to travel, mediums, or space itself. From the word itself, the prefix “inter-” means in between or across, and “galactic” means galaxy. Basically, the term means between galaxies, and it may be an interaction or other activity when two galaxies meet and come in contact, either direct or indirect. When people say intergalactic travel, it relates to science fiction that travel between galaxies or planetary systems are [...]

Interstellar is attached to many other words, like the terms intergalactic and interplanetary. It literally means between or among stars, and is defined as an adjective in the English language. The term can also pertain to space clouds, matter in outer space or a specific study in astronomy. Interstellar cloud is a generic name for a clump of gas, plasma, or dust found or discovered in galaxies or other planetary systems. Depending on its size, density or physical characteristics, hydrogen [...]

ALenticular galaxy is basically a kind of galaxy which borders in between an elliptical and spiral galaxy when classified. They are shaped like a disk, and have almost no interstellar matter, and very little formation of stars. There are, however, remnants of small dust particles. A lot of aging stars are present in this type of galaxy.

The universe is continuously being explored by astronomers and scientists. This exploration and research endeavors have led to the discovery of many other galaxies and celestial phenomena that had been unknown to us for many years. Now, the Milky Way galaxy, which is our galaxy, is now part of a Local Group, where about thirty more galaxies are found. Aside from the Local Group, superclusters also exist and host smaller galaxies and clusters that are some of the largest entities [...]

The Milky Way is not the only galaxy existing in the vast universe. In recent years, more galaxies have been discovered. Our Solar System can be found on the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way galaxy is part of a group of about 30 to 35 galaxies in one neighbourhood and are collectively called as a Local Group. This neighbourhood of galaxies covers the entire sky.

Photo by: Apod.Nasa Creative Commons The Large Magellanic cloud is basically a dwarf galaxy that lies about 150,000 light years away from Earth. It is currently the third closest discovered galaxy from earth right after the Canis Major and Sagittarius Dwarf galaxies.

Globular clusters are vast swarms of stars, up to a hundred thousand or more, which were formed through time. Tightly bound up by gravity, globular clusters are spherical in size. The stars in a globular cluster are red giants, much older than our Sun or our Solar System. Each globular cluster can contain hundreds of thousands of stars. All stars are formed in clusters when a nebula starts to break up into separate clouds of material. But globular clusters are [...]

The heliosphere is the protective layer surrounding the sun. It is like a bubble in space that is basically produced by solar winds. Solar wind is composed of particles, ionized atoms and magnetic field. This wind streams off of the Sun at the speed of about 400 km/s. This speed will start to slow down as it hits interstellar space or the interstellar medium. It will move slower than the speed of sound as it passes through a termination shock. [...]

The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is considered to be the greatest space equipment ever to have been made. This special telescope gets its name from noted astronomer Edwin Hubble. Funding for the Hubble Telescope came during the 1970’s; however, it was not launched until 1990. It is a space telescope that floats hundreds of miles above Earth. For more than two decodes, the Hubble Space Telescope has been producing extremely vivid images from space.

. It may have formed over many years. Galaxies could be formed from ten to thousands of galaxies. Galaxy clusters seem to be a group or plenty of galaxies joined together by mutual pull of gravity. There are irregular galaxy clusters and regular galaxy clusters. Irregular galaxy clusters have lesser masses and absence of a well-defined center. Regular galaxy clusters have a well defined core and a spherical shape. A galaxy cluster also has large structures. These are superclusters, the [...]