The large systems of stars and interstellar matter are called Galaxies. It usually contains several million to some trillion stars which are of the volumes between several million and several trillion times that of the nearest star- Sun. They are extended to some thousands to several 100,000s light years, typically separated by millions of light years distance. These galaxies come in a variety of flavors Spiral, lenticular, elliptical and irregular. They contain stars, different types of star clusters and nebulae.
We live in Milky Way and it is one of the giant Spiral galaxy of 100000 light years diameter.
It is a mass of approximately a trillion solar masses where the Sun is one of several 100 billions of stars of the Milky Way. The nearest neighbor is the giant Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which is also a spiral galaxy, about 2-3 million light years away. There is wide variety of galaxies having different shapes and sizes but they have many common features as well. Galaxies are huge collection of stars like the sun, which are in millions to several trillions in counts. Among these stars most of them are not lonely in space like the sun, but occur in pairs or multiple arrangements.
When two galaxies collide, that means they merge together. Galaxies contain huge stars but typically nothing much happens to those stars while colliding because there is lot of space in between those stars. However, the planetary orbits could be upset by changing their gravitational fields. The clouds and the dust existing in that space collide. These big streams of gases, dust and stars get thrown out, making beautiful looking galaxies. And when the clouds in each of the galaxies collide they produce massive, short lived stars.
We live in Milky Way and it is one of the giant Spiral galaxy of 100000 light years diameter.
It is a mass of approximately a trillion solar masses where the Sun is one of several 100 billions of stars of the Milky Way. The nearest neighbor is the giant Andromeda Galaxy (M31), which is also a spiral galaxy, about 2-3 million light years away. There is wide variety of galaxies having different shapes and sizes but they have many common features as well. Galaxies are huge collection of stars like the sun, which are in millions to several trillions in counts. Among these stars most of them are not lonely in space like the sun, but occur in pairs or multiple arrangements.
When two galaxies collide, that means they merge together. Galaxies contain huge stars but typically nothing much happens to those stars while colliding because there is lot of space in between those stars. However, the planetary orbits could be upset by changing their gravitational fields. The clouds and the dust existing in that space collide. These big streams of gases, dust and stars get thrown out, making beautiful looking galaxies. And when the clouds in each of the galaxies collide they produce massive, short lived stars.
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