Insight Into: Galaxies—Cities of Stars

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

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

 

·       Milky Way panoramas courtesy of ESO/Y. Beletsky and ESO/Bruno Gilli

·       Photos of Edwin Hubble courtesy of Huntington Library

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

·       Photo of Henrietta Leavitt courtesy of American Institute of Physics, Emilio Segrè Visual Archives

·       M33, M94, NGC 55, M49, and M84 images courtesy of NOAO/AURA/NSF

·       NGC 6822 image courtesy of Local Group Galaxies Survey Team/NOAO/AURA/NSF

·       NGC 1232 image courtesy of ESO/P. Grosbøl

·       NGC 4449 image courtesy of Digital Sky Survey/AURA

·       NGC 1300 image courtesy of Hillary Mathis/NOAO/AURA/NSF

·       Small Magellanic Cloud image courtesy of F. Winkler/Middlebury College, the MCELS Team, and NOAO/AURA/NSF

·       NGC 55 color image courtesy of T. A. Rector/NOAO/AURA/NSF

 

Written by Vanessa Thomas

Designed by John Godfrey 

Music courtesy of Association Production Music

(SPEECH) 

 [DOWNBEAT MUSIC] 

(DESCRIPTION) 
 A starry sky above a hill. Red and white light in the sky fades to black in the upper left. 

Text, Like a big city sparkling with lights, our galaxy, the Milky Way, glitters with the light from billions of stars. 

A blue spiral galaxy. 

Text, We live in the outskirts of this immense cosmic city. 

Our star, the Sun, is our "porch light." 

Galaxies in black space. 

Text, Far in the distance are other stellar cities -- other galaxies, each shining with their own huge collection of stars. 

Some galaxies are smaller, like quaint little towns. 

Others sprawl out, each one a cosmic metropolis. 

Glowing galaxies flow by in outer space. 

Text, Everywhere we look, in every direction, these celestial cities go on and on as far as our eyes and telescopes can see. 

There are billions of other galaxies like ours -- each filled with millions, billions, or even trillions of stars -- scattered throughout our incredible universe. A Visualization of numerous galaxies as they fly past us.