Expert: Kenneth Renshaw - 7/26/2008

Question
hi Mr.Renshaw
i am doing a project for school need a few questions answered.

1. what is the universe? when and how was it formed?
2. what are galaxies? how many different kinds are there?
3. a little information about the milky way
4. solar systems...what are they?
5. information about all the planets in our solar system and their orbits and moons and such.

thank you,
manjusha

Answer
Hi, thanks for writing.  1. the universe is everything that is in existance.  It was believed to have formed 13.7 billion years ago by a "big bang" explosion.  Personally, I believe it took the intelligence of a God to start this process.  2. Galaxies are the large clusters of stars (and other matter) making up the universe.  There are spiral, barred spiral (the Milky Way is one), elliptical, irregular galaxies.  There are also active galaxies, such as Seyfert galaxies and quasars.  3.  The Milky way is a large barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of 100,000 light years and a mass of a bit under a trillion (1,000,000,000,000) suns.  4. a solar system is a star (like our sun), and whatever planets, comets, asteroids, ice, dust, etc. that surround it.  5. look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_System for a lot of info on the planets, moons, etc.  Write anytime.