THE MILKY WAY

Day 3: Neighbours

THE LOCAL GROUP

• Includes over 35 galaxies

• Gravitational center between the Milky Way and the Andromeda galaxy

• 10-million light year diameter

Andromeda Galaxy

• 2.5 million light years away

• Nearest spiral galaxy

• Largest galaxy in the Local Group- about one trillion stars!!

Milky Way Galaxy

• Our home galaxy• 2nd largest member

of the Local Group

Triangulum Galaxy

• “The Pinwheel Galaxy”

• 3 million light years away

• 3rd largest member of the Local Group

Others

• The local group consists of about 30 other smaller galaxies

Sagittarius Dwarf Irregular

• About 3.4million light years away

• Discovered in 1977 using the Schmidt telescope

• Most distant object in the Local Group ia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Messier_54.png

Large and Small Magellanic Clouds

• Satellite galaxies of the Milky Way• Visible to the naked eye from the Southern

Hemisphere

Colliding Galaxies

• Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy

• Canus Major Dwarf Galaxy– Closest galaxy– 42000 light years away from

the center of the Milky Way

THE VIRGO SUPERCLUSTER

• The Local Group is one of many groups in the Virgo Supercluster

• Contains at least 100 galaxy groups

OUR PLACE IN THE UNIVERSE• Community• County• Province• Country• Hemisphere• Planet• Stellar System• Galactic Position• Galaxy• Group• Supercluster

• http://www.cbc.ca/quirks/archives/06-07/images/MilkyWayGalaxyNASA.jpg• http://www.nasa.gov/images/content/236088main_milkyway516.jpg• http://www.astro.wisc.edu/goat/images/13.jpg• http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/HBASE/starlog/strclos.html• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_Nebula• http://www.astrographics.com/GalleryPrints/Display/GP0112.jpg• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barred_spiral_galaxy• http://www.obspm.fr/actual/nouvelle/aug02/accretion.en.shtml• http://cache.eb.com/eb/image?id=94941&rendTypeId=4• http://images.astronet.ru/pubd/2002/04/08/0001175712/ngc2787_hst.jpg• http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/0711/pleiades_fs_big.jpg• http://seds.org/~spider/spider/LG/Pics/sexA_big.jpg• http://www.spacetoday.org/images/Hubble/HubbleBeauty/NGC7742SpiralGalaxyNASA.jpg• http://www.cita.utoronto.ca/~dubinski/bcg/fig3.gif• http://www.starlight-news.co.uk/images/merger2.jpg• http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/Astronomy/TheGalaxies/Galaxies/EllipticalGalaxies/m87.gif• http://lh6.ggpht.com/_h-cF21vnXPo/R4WDZgJm-MI/AAAAAAAACSk/QDV0gatdxgo/Cosmic+Bullets.jpg• http://www.grg.org/charter/Universe.jpg