Universe [dropdown information] [2]

Most astronomers think that the Universe was formed during the Big Bang.

An explosion which occurred between 10-20 billion [10-20,000,000,000] years ago.

This giant explosion hurled matter in all directions and caused space itself to expand.

As the Universe cooled, the material in it combined to form spinning, swirling disks of material we now call galaxies.

At the centre, gravity [the force by which a planet or other body draws objects toward its centre] pulled more and more material in.

As these bodies smashed into one another they formed larger and larger galaxies.

Earth is located in an outer spiral arm of one of the galaxies called the Milky Way.

This is where we live. Address : Earth, the Milky Way, the Universe.

The Milky Way is one of perhaps 100 billion galaxies in the Universe.

Most of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy are thought to have planets of their own.

So what should you have learned?.....

Astronomers think that the Universe was created by the Big Bang.
The explosion created everything in the Universe.
That smaller bodies of matter began to collect together.
That these in turn began to spiral and draw other bodies together.
Gravity pulled these into what became galaxies.
There are billions of galaxies.
Galaxies include stars, planets and moons.
That one of these galaxies is called the Milky Way.
This galaxy has a number of spiralling arms.
We live on a planet in one of the outer spiralling arms.

Click on each of the sentences to see a picture which may help with your understanding. The first one opens automatically. Click the sentence again to hide the picture.