Page 4 - Curriculum Visions Dynamic Book

over many years. It shows galaxies beyond our galaxy, the Milky Way. The image allows us to see how
galaxies are spaced out across the cosmos. The brightest and nearest galaxies are shown in blue. The faintest, most distant ones are in red. The dark band in this image shows the area of the sky where our Milky Way Galaxy blocks our view of distant objects.
For more on the Milky Way see Volume 2: Sun and Solar
The Universe is everything around us—all the matter and energy that exist everywhere. Astronomers use the word cosmos for the Universe and everything in it.
Looked at from the perspective of the Universe, we, on Earth, are just an insignificant speck in the whole system of things. The main objects in the cosmos are the millions of galaxies, stars, and the clouds of interstellar gas and dust called nebUlae.
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 This is an image
of the entire sky as
seen from the Earth by
radio telescopes. It is not a single photograph, but a compilation
of over 1.6 million galaxies taken from astronomical observations