Andromeda Galaxy - Nearest to our Milky Way

What is The Cosmos?

The Cosmos is a general term that is used to define the structure of our Universe. Studying the Cosmos, our Universe, is called Cosmology. 

When you look up at the night sky on a clear night you can see billions of stars and the Milky Way. The Milky Way is our home galaxy which has so many stars that they all seem to merge into a milky mist across the sky. There is another galaxy near our Milky Way which is called the Andromeda Galaxy (shown above). It is a similar size and shape to our galaxy (at least 100,000 Light Years diameter) and probably looks similar in shape. Our home the Solar system in our galaxy is located on an outer spiral arm. Yet these two galaxies are only a minuscule part of our Universe - there are trillions more that we can only see with large telescopes, like the new James Webb Space Telescope  which has revealed galaxies near the  beginning of our Universe.

Our Galaxy - The Milky Way

We know that our Universe is  expanding with acceleration since the 'Big Bang' (a term used by astronomers to signify the birth of our Universe) and, because light travels at a constant speed, we can also measure the distance of these earlier galaxies using different techniques.

The Cosmic Web

We now know that our Universe  is connected by a giant web which carries Hydrogen, Dark Matter and other mechanisms to form new Galaxies. Galaxies are not randomly distributed in the Universe. Until recently, the web filaments were not visible to normal telescopes but they have now been revealed by more sensitive space craft like ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. The structure below is Abell 2744, which has been nicknamed the Pandora Cluster owing to its complex and jumbled structure. It is composed of at least four smaller components that are merging.

The faint web filaments connecting galaxies have been exposed here 

We find most of them in groups and clusters which are themselves part of large-scale structures such as sheets and filaments. These enormous structures contain millions of galaxies that are connected together by filaments known as the Cosmic Web. A team of scientists led by the University of Bonn has just found the longest intergalactic gas filament ever observed. A massive intergalactic gas filament measuring at least 50 million light-years in length--the longest yet to be found. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fiCgMV0GiI 

What is Space?

We all know that the matter, such as planets, stars and galaxies, etc,  in our Universe is constructed with atoms containing electrons, protons and neutrons but recently scientists have discovered that the protons, neutrons and other particles are also built from sub-particles called quarks held together by a strong nuclear force that determines their mass. These are the building blocks of our Universe which you can also learn about in this website. Forget your old knowledge of space and matter from school days, and prepare for new discoveries in this site that will blow your mind!

Prepare Yourself for More Exciting Discoveries 

A new Renaissance in science and understanding of our Universe in the Cosmos and the driving forces has happened. My purpose in this site is to try and bring all the current ideas and discoveries together into an understandable format, hopefully to give others an encouraging push to open their minds and develop a new understanding of our Universe in the Cosmos and our place in it. The discoveries of the cosmos can only be made using the latest technologies and equipment, such as the James Webb Space Telescope shown below.

James Webb Space Telescope