Describe the overall scale and structure of the
Describe the overall scale and structure of the universe. 8 th grade Science
Most of the Universe is made up of Dark Matter and Dark Energy. That is the all that black stuff out there in space. We are not sure what it is. It is not like matter on Earth. It is not a liquid, solid or gas. The only way we know it is there is because it seems to create gravitational pull on other structures out in space.
The planet Earth is just one structure in the solar system. The diameter of the Earth is 8, 000 miles across. How much bigger is the solar system?
A solar system is a collection of planets, asteroids and dust orbiting around a star. The diameter of the solar system is 7 billion miles.
Light can travel 186, 000 miles a second! That is about 6 trillion miles in a year! Galaxies are too big to measure in miles. Instead we use light years. A light year is the distance light can travel in 1 year.
A view of an arm of the Milky Way from down here on Earth.
Galaxies A galaxy is made of planets, stars, gases and dust held together by gravity. Our galaxy is called the Milky Way. It is a spiral galaxy. This means that the outside arms spin around the center. The center of the galaxy is theorized to be a black hole. Don’t worry, our solar system is 30, 000 light years away from the that black hole! Our galaxy measures approximately 100, 000 light years in diameter. It takes 225 million years for our solar system to make one trip around the Milky Way!
Super Clusters A super cluster is a lot of galaxies that are relatively close together. The name of the super cluster that holds our galaxy is called the Virgo super cluster. The diameter of our super cluster is approximately 100 million light years. That means it would take a beam of light 100 million years to get from one side to another.
Milky way galaxy
All the super clusters connected together make up the Filament structures of the universe. They are the largest structures in the universe. They create the walls of the universe! More?
The diameter of the universe is estimated to be 100 billion light years from one side to the other. Can you find where Earth is?
How do we measure the scale of Scale of the Space? Earth Solar System Milky Way Galaxy 8, 000 miles (diameter) 7 billion miles (diameter) 100, 000 light years (diameter) Virgo super cluster 100 million light years (diameter) Universe/Filaments 100 billion light years (diameter) Light Year: the distance light can travel in one year.
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