Definitions by OneBadAsp

Galaxy

A swarm of stars held together by gravity, like our own Milky Way. A typical galaxy may contain a hundred billion stars like our Sun.

In the clear night sky, if you're lucky not to have much light pollution, you can still see the Milky Way, our galaxy.

Galaxy by OneBadAsp October 21, 2006

Cosmic String 

Thin loops of ultra dense engery, far narrower than the nucleus of an atom but stretching across vast distances, left over from the Big Bang and acting as gravitational 'seeds' on which the galaxies grew.

A piece of cosmic string just a mile long would weigh as much as the Earth. A cosmic string that stretched right across the universe could be scrunched up into a ball smaller than a single atom, but would weigh as much as a supercluster of galaxies.

Cosmic String by OneBadAsp October 21, 2006

Expanding Universe 

The fleeing of galaxies from each other in the aftermath of the Big Bang.

We live in an expanding universe.

Expanding Universe by OneBadAsp October 21, 2006

Supergiant 

A very large star, in fact the most massive of the bunch. They are about 10 to 70 times the size of our Sun and can be hundreds of thousands of times brighter. Because of their extreme mass, they are very short lived compared to other stars with a life span of only 10 million years.

Because they live fast, die young and leave a beautiful nebula in their wake, supergiants can only been seen in places like the arms of spiral galaxies, open clusters and irregular galaxies. Places where new stars are born frequently.

Rigel, the brighest star in the constellation Orion is a typical blue-white supergiant, whereas Betelgeuse and Antares are red supergiants.

Supergiant by OneBadAsp October 21, 2006

Space Junk 

The dead satellites, discarded rocket casings, and so forth that orbit the Earth, creating a hazard for space shuttles.

With all the space junk that gridles the planet it is a wonder that NASA hasn't done more to clean it up.

Space Junk by OneBadAsp October 21, 2006

Universe 

All there is.

This is a flexable term, which once was used for what we now call the solar system. Later, it was used for what we call the Milky Way. Now it is used for the sum total of all the galaxies, of which appears to be about ten billion of them.

The more we learn, the larger our universe seems to get.

Universe by OneBadAsp October 21, 2006

Supernova

The cataclysmic explosion of a massive star. A Supernova may, for a short time, out shine an entire galaxy of a hundred billion ordinary stars. It is thought to leave behind a highly compressed neutron star.

Our Sun could never go supernova because it is simply too small. Only a massive star could die as a supernova.

Supernova by OneBadAsp October 21, 2006