Julie

=__**Galaxies.**__=

Galaxies hare and extraordinary thing, they are made up of billions of stars, dust, and gas that is all held together by gravity. There are millions of galaxies throughout the universe. They really vary in their sizes and shapes.It is led to believe that there are millions of galaxies out there. Many people believe that we are not the only life forms out there because that would be a waste of space. Just think of all the space out there, our planet earth is huge to humans, and Earth is just a fraction of our galaxy, and our galaxy is just one of the millions of galaxies. But there are many people who think we are the only ones and there is only one galaxy. There are many different types of galaxies, like the Lenticular, Elliptical, Spiral, and Irregular. There are many different names out there for the different types of galaxies the four that i just talked about are the more well known names for those types of galaxies.The galaxy that everyone is familiar with is our galaxy, known as, The [|Milky Way]. Our galaxy is a spiral galaxy, that is when there is a black whole in the middle of the galaxy. The black whole in the middle makes everything around it slowly move inwards, which spins in a circle which causes our galaxy to look like a spiral.It is very difficult to tell how old the Milky Way is, but it is estimated that the oldest star is 13.6 billion years. It has been said that the black whole in the middle of the galaxy is bound to suck in the whole galaxy. It will take millions of years for this to happen, but none the less it will happen.

Barred Spiral and Lenticular Galaxies are probably the two most similar galaxies out there. Not much is different about these two galaxies but they are quite different. Barred Spiral Galaxies have a [|galactic bulge] in the center, has [|spiral arms] and is shaped like a disk. Lenticular galaxies also have a galactic bulge in the center and shaped like a disk, but it does not have spiral arms. There is little or no gas in lenticular galaxies so the stars are older. They both have a bulge in the center and is in the shape of a disk. So really the only difference in the barred spiral galaxy and a lenticular galaxy is that the barred spiral galaxy looks like its spinning, where as the lenticular galaxy does not look like its spinning.

Barred Spiral Galaxy (Milky Way)

Lenticular Galaxy(can also be called Sombrero)

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