Myth vs Reality: Visiting Galaxies

Produced by the Space Telescope Science Institute’s Office of Public Outreach

 

All images, illustrations, and videos courtesy of NASA except:

 

·       Milky Way panorama courtesy of ESO/S. Brunier

·       Taurus constellation drawing from Firmamentum Sobiescianum sive Uranographia by Johannes Hevelius, courtesy of the United States Naval Observatory

·       Andromeda Galaxy image courtesy of Bill Schoening, Vanessa Harvey/REU program/NOAO/AURA/NSF

·       Redshift animation courtesy of ESO

·       Centaurus A visible-light images courtesy of ESO

 

 

Written by Tracy Vogel

Designed by Marc Lussier

Music courtesy of Associated Production Music

(SPEECH)

[ELECTRONIC MUSIC]

 

(DESCRIPTION)

Top left, a black and white picture of a minotaur. Top right, a color picture of a galaxy.

 

Text, MYTH versus REALITY

 

Myth side

 

Text, We can study other galaxies by visiting them.

 

Reality side

 

Text, Other galaxies are too far away to visit. Even if you could travel at the speed of light, it would take millions to billions of years to reach most other galaxies. The closest galaxies to our own Milky Way are dwarf galaxies thousands of light-years away. We study other galaxies from afar, using powerful space telescopes like Hubble, Chandra,  and Webb.