Are galaxies big?
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Are galaxies big?

[From: ] [author: ] [Date: 14-06-18] [Hit: ]
however compared to an elephant, i am small. From how we view space, our galaxy to us may look enormous. However in the grand scheme of things and our thoughts on the universe, it is not so big.......

To call something big you would certainly have to compare it to something.
for example:
compared to an ant, i am big,
however compared to an elephant, i am small.

From how we view space, our galaxy to us may look enormous.
However in the grand scheme of things and our thoughts on the universe, it is not so big.
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Huge.
Our solar system is mind-boggling big; it's about 7 *billion* miles across (at Pluto's orbit)... next year, a probe we launched in 2005 will *finally* arrive at Pluto - and it left Earth the fastest of any probe we've sent into space - 10 *years* to go halfway across the solar system - that's so far, it takes light about 5 hours to reach us from Pluto - it's 5 'light hours' away.
Now... our Galaxy is 100,000 light *years* across - it would take something moving at the speed of light 100,000 years to travel the diameter of our galaxy.

And, our galaxy is far from the largest; ours holds about 250 billion stars; Andromeda, our large neighbor is about 1 1/2 to twice as big as the Milkyway - perhaps 600 billion stars, and 140,000 light years across. And, there are larger galaxies yet - some Elliptical galaxies can hold a *trillion* stars, and be nearly 500,000 light years across.

So, I repeat.... They're *huge* - beyond what most people's mind can grasp. (Certainly beyond mine!)
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Depends on your definition of "big".

Galaxies are certainly much larger than the Earth.
They are much larger than our solar system.
Some are even larger than our own galaxy.
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They can be massive, even between each other -
http://www.rhysy.net/galaxy-sizes.html
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In relative to Earth, gargantuan.

Source(s):

My cerebral cortex.
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Yes, about a million, times a million times a million, times a million, times a million, times a million, times bigger than Earth. 10^18 times.
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