Galaxies Far Far Away Trivia Quiz

The Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31, is the closest large spiral galaxy to Earth's galaxy and is located about 2.5 million light-years away. It has over a trillion stars and can be seen by the naked eye from Earth. It got this large mass by consuming smaller galaxies over a long period of time. Andromeda has a supermassive black hole at its center.

It is named after a mythological Greek princess and was first seen around 960 CE. For centuries, scientists thought it was a cloud of gas and dust within Earth's galaxy. However, in 1924, it was proven by Edwin Hubble to be a separate galaxy. It has been shown that, due to the paths they are on, Earth's galaxy and the Andromeda galaxy will potentially collide in about 4.5 billion years. Be prepared!

Earth's solar system is contained within the Milky Way galaxy, which houses between 100 billion and 400 billion stars. It is considered a barred spiral galaxy which means it has a central bar-shaped structure of stars and a flattened, rotating disk with spiraling arms. At its center is a supermassive black hole which is 4 million times the mass of the Sun. Earth's solar system is on the inner edge of a smaller spiral arm known as the Orion Arm and is 26,000 to 27,000 light-years away from the galactic center.

The Milky Way got its name from the ancient Greeks and Romans because it appeared as a faint, milky band of light across the night sky. It reminded them of a river of milk, and their term, "galaxias" (from gala, meaning milk), is the root of our modern word "galaxy". Originally, people thought it was an atmospheric effect but, in 1610, Galileo Galilei used a telescope to show it was a collection of countless faint stars.

The Cigar Galaxy, known also as M82, is a starburst galaxy which means it has a very high rate of star formation. Creation of these stars causes explosive activity in its core and a "superwind" that blows gas and dust outwards. The rapid rate of star formation there will eventually be self-limiting. When star formation becomes too vigorous, it will consume or destroy the material needed to make more stars and the starburst will then subside, probably in a few tens of millions of years.

The galaxy is located approximately 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. It was discovered by the German astronomer Johann Elert Bode in 1774. When viewed through a telescope, its long, narrow, and elliptical shape appears like a cigar, which is the source of its name.

The Sombrero Galaxy, also known M104, is a spiral galaxy located in the Virgo constellation. This is roughly 30 million light years from Earth. The galaxy has a brilliant, white, bulbous core encircled by thick dust lanes which make up its spiral structure. The dust lane is where new stars are formed. It has about 2,000 huge clusters of stars and these clusters date back about 13 billion years ago.

The Sombrero Galaxy was discovered in 1781 by the French astronomer and comet hunter Pierre Méchain. It got its name because when viewed from Earth it looks like a Mexican sombrero from the side.

The Black Eye Galaxy, also known as M64, is a spiral galaxy located about 17 million light years away from Earth. It has a spectacular band of dark dust that partially obscures its bright core. Also, it has a bizarre internal motion. The gas in the outer regions of this galaxy is rotating in the opposite direction from the gas and stars in its inner regions. Astronomers theorize that it absorbed a smaller satellite galaxy over a billion years ago, and the remains of this collision persist in the opposing spin.

English astronomer Edward Pigott first spotted this galaxy in March of 1719, just 12 days before German astronomer Johann Elert Bode also notated it. It got its name from the dust in front of the nucleus which looks like a black eye. It has also been called the "Evil Eye" Galaxy for the same reason.

The Pinwheel Galaxy, also known M101, is a massive, "face on" spiral galaxy in the Ursa Major constallation. It is about 25 million light years from Earth. It has a jaw-dropping one trillion stars and is 170,000 lights years in diameter. This makes it twice the diameter of Earth's galaxy. It has spiral arms edged out of bright, young clusters of hot, blue, newborn stars. It also is the site of many supernova, which are explosions of stars.

Pierre Méchain discovered the Pinwheel galaxy in 1781. Because it is viewed "face on", its central bulge with a spiral structure makes it appear like a pinwheel; hence its name. In 2006, NASA and the European Space Agency released an immense, high-definition image of the Pinwheel Galaxy, created by combining 51 separate exposures taken over nearly ten years from the Hubble Space Telescope.

The Fried Egg Galaxy, also known as NGC 7742, is an unbarred spiral galaxy located approximately 72.4 million light-years away in the constellation Pegasus. Being unbarred, it does not have a central bar of stars and gas so its arms reach out directly from the core. Its diameter is about 50,000 light years. At many less than 15 million years old, the galaxy is known to have some very young stars.

This galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on October 18, 1784 and later, due to its bright center and outer ring, was named "Fried Egg".

The Skyrocket Galaxy, also known as Kiso 5639, is a dwarf, irregular galaxy in the Ursa Major constellation. It is about 85 million light years from Earth. It is shaped like a flattened pancake, but because it is tilted edge-on, it resembles a skyrocket, with a brilliant blazing head and a long, star-studded tail. The head of the galaxy is a region of incredibly intense and rapid star formations which began about one million years ago. The tail is made of older, fading stars.

This small galaxy, only 2,700 light years wide, was discovered in 2004 using the Hubble Space Telescope. Due to its shape, it was called the Skyrocket Galaxy and later images would show the fiery births of stars.

The Tadpole Galaxy, also known as UGC 10214, is a disrupted barred spiral galaxy located approximately 420 million light-years away from Earth's galaxy in the constellation Draco. It is labeled disrupted because a close encounter or merger with another galaxy can stretch and distort the galaxy's structure. The gravitational pull can then rip out long trails of stars and gas, creating a "tadpole" appearance. The tail of debris on the Tadpole Galaxy stretches out more than 280,000 light years. It is believed the small clumps of stars in the tail will likely become distinct dwarf galaxies that will orbit in the Tadpole's halo.

The galaxy is usually credited to the Russian astronomer Boris Aleksandrovich Vorontsov-Velyaminov and his finding in the 1950s. Due to its unique appearance, it was called the "Tadpole Galaxy".

The Butterfly Galaxies, also known as NGC 4567 and NGC 4568, are colliding spiral galaxies in the constellation Virgo about 60 million light-years away from Earth. They continue to collide and merge, a process expected to form a single elliptical galaxy in about 500 million years. The heavy gravitational forces cause this merging which also results in star formation.

The Butterfly Galaxies were discovered by William Herschel in 1784 and he cataloged them as a double nebula. They were named for the shape of the insect they resembled. In 1995, the Hubble Telescope allowed astronomers to witness supernova in the early stages of exploding as these two systems collided.