If you had a galaxy, but there was one star which stood out, well wouldn't you point YOUR telescope at it?
354510
By stars, you mean women, and by telescope, you mean co-ck right?\n\nAnd yes.
650511
None, they up in the Sky, best seen at night. The Earth does revolve around a Big Star that can actually be seen in the day and not night. Make for a good Word Play/Riddle question. ;-D
111814
The galaxy is help up by angular momentum. The star are all rotating around the center of the galaxy, although the details are different from a simple solar system, and the resulting orbits can be a tad odd.\n\nThe real question is what hold the galaxy together - and that is gravity. Gravity from all the stars, dust, and the massive black home in the center of most galaxies (including ours) and a large gravitational contribution from "missing matter."
403616
yes we can, and actually astronomers have been working on it for the last 15 years or so, the problem is that there is no telescope currently powerful enough to directly see any planets orbiting other stars, the most common problem is that what little light is reflected by the planet gets easily lost in the glare of the stares light, so the only way that we can find out weather or not a star has planets orbiting around it, is by looking at the influence the planet has on the star, like causing it to wobble, this is because as a planet orbits around a star, it causes the star to slightly wobble with the orbit of the planet, and it is that slight wobble by which astronomers can estimate the mass and speed of rotation and many other details about the planet.\n\nnow if you are asking this to find out if there's any life out there, i would suggest reading this book called "Faint Echoes, Distant Stars" it will open up a whole new world of possibilities to you, here is a link to it\nhttp://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&isbn=0060750995&itm=4
1057373
When we look toward the galactic center we see a long, thin strip. This suggests a disk seen edge-on, rather than a ellipsoid or another shape. We can also detect the bulge at the center. Since we see spiral galaxies which are disks with central bulges, this is a bit of a tipoff. \n\nWhen we measure velocities of stars and gas in our galaxy, we see an overall rotational motion greater than random motions. This is another characteristic of a spiral.
689887
The Andromeda galaxy was the first one to have individual stars seen in the big telescopes in the early 20th century. Studying those individual stars helped determine the distance to the galaxy and the idea that galaxies are like islands with huge amounts of stars, not just clusters within our own galaxy (Milky Way). This was done by Hubble.\n\nBy the way it is the closest major galaxy to us, but there is a small family of about 30 known galaxies, mostly small, that Andromeda and our galaxy are a part of. Called the "Local Group". Many of these are closer to us than Andromeda.\n\nIn a small telescope and dark skies away from the city, you can see two dwarf galaxies near Andromeda. By the way don't get a telescope from Walmart or Ebay or the Shopping Network, those are junk. Check out Orion Telescopes on the web, via mail order. (I'm not affiliated with them).
307862
If you look at the sky on a clear night, away from city lights and polluted air, you'll see a milky band of light right across the sky, the Milky Way, our galaxy.   With a small telescope you'll see the milkiness is made of individual stars.You're looking at the plane of ourgalaxy.   If you look away from this band of light you're looking out into intergalactic space away from the thickness of our galaxy so you don't see so many stars.   If you look in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius, you'll see the Milky Way seems to get wider and brighter.   This is the centre of the galaxy.   So the galaxy is shaped like two dinner plates facing each other, circular, and fatter at the centre than at the edges.   The centre is bright because stars are packed closer together there than way out here.   We know that we're about 30 000 light years from the centre, the diameter of the galawy is about 100 000 light years and the thickness at the centre is about 3000 light years because a particular type of star called a Cepheid variable gets brighter and dimmer with a period that depends on how bright it is.   So we know how bright it really is.   By measuring how bright it appears, we can work out haw far away it is.   So by looking at Cepheids in different parts of the galaxy we can work out its measurements.   And if we look at other galaxies outside our own, many of them are the same shape; fat in the centre, thin at the edges, with spiral arms curving out from the centre, like cloud bands in a hurricane.
1061786
There are actual images of the entire galaxy, but from our position within the disk, it looks a lot like an edge on thin disk with a galactic bulge.  The earliest image of our galaxy that I know of was assembled from IRAS data.  The DIRBE experiment aboard COBE also produces a some nice ones (COBE was a mission to explore the microwave background radiation left over from the big bang.  DIRBE was aboard that spacecraft to characterize the diffuse infrared foreground, namely our galaxy, so its contribution could be removed from the microwave measurements).\n\nDIRBEs shorter wavelength infrared channels trace the stars in the galaxy nicely so you can see the bulge:http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000130.html\n\nThe longer wavelength channels are more sensitive to dust:http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap000517.html\n\nNote that these are all sky images probably using a Molleweide projection.  The centers look towards the center of the galaxy, but the edges look directly out (away) from the center.  This is a "wraparound" view.
1022362
Off course scienists investigate this. Our galaxy is pretty flat around where we are - only 3,000 light years wide. It gets thicker then that in the center -16,000 light years but that's still pretty thin compare to it's length - about 100,000 light years across. "above" and "below" us are other stars, possibly with other planets. Basically the same things that are "in front" and "behind" us across the length of the galactic disk. \nOn a very dark night you'll be able to see a bright band across the night sky - that's the Milky Way. You'll then be looking towards the galactic center. The pictures we recive from satelites and telescope come from different directions.\nAs for a 3D model of the universe there is such a project in progress but it deals with objects on a much larger scale - galaxy clusters, superclusters, walls and fillaments.
73499
The farther we look into the universe with telescopes like Hubble and others, the more galaxies we see. I read a very interesting fact in an astronomy magazine recently that said it is estimated that if you hold your thumb out at arms lenth, close one eye and look at the top of your thumb nail, you are covering up an estimated 240,000 galaxies with your thumb regardless of what direction you look!!!!!! Each galaxy might have an average of 100 to 200 billion stars in them! I have no idea for the estimate of sand grains on every beach in the world-maybe that would be a good question to ask separately in the geography section- but I'm positive that there are quite a bit more stars than sand grains. Good luck!
1147922
The expansion of the universe is the main reason. Yes, there are certainly stars in every direction, most of them contained within other galaxies. At extreme ranges (about 13.7-billion light years) those galaxies are moving away from us so fast that their light is effectively red-shifted out of sight.
342181
Well the nearest star system is light years away. So if they send one, we won't find out the findings. Besides, how would we send commands and receive them, they would have to travel light years of distance. So I would say no.
1034104
Yes, how could it be possible that we are the only planet that is positioned currently and close enough to a star in the entire universe?  Plus on a more spiritual aspect there is scripture upon the matter... "And by the word of my power, have I created them, which is mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth.  And worlds without number have I created; and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten."
1056956
No, I read an article and it said that you need a strong telescope and lots and lots of astronomy experience. I was hoping I'd be able to see it too, but I have neither!
685084
You can try to count the stars, but there are as many stars in the Universe as there are grains of sand on the beach.  It would be a very difficult task and take millions of lifetimes to complete.  Sorry.
50134
Given the number of stars in our galaxy alone, its highly probably that a star like our own sun exists with satellites like our earth orbiting it.  Of course if you're looking for a name of another planet with life on it you won't find that just yet.
110001
You couldnt see yourself.\nYou, the Earth, the Sun, and the Milky Way galaxy would all blend together be a faint blurr, even through a telescope.