The Universe (Oxford AQA IGCSE Physics)

Revision Note

The Universe

The universe

  • The Universe is a large collection of thousands of millions of galaxies

    • The Universe is also the name given to the entirety of space

  • A galaxy is a large collection of thousands of millions of stars

    • Stars are astronomical objects such as the Sun

  • These stars are part of solar systems

  • Each Solar system has a number of planets

The structure of the universe

Our Solar System is found in the Milky Way galaxy which is one of billions of galaxies in the Universe
Hierarchy of objects in the Universe

The Milky Way

  • The Sun is one of billions of stars in a galaxy called the Milky Way

  • Other stars in the Milky Way galaxy are much further away from Earth than the Sun is

  • Some of these stars also have planets which orbit them

The Milky Way galaxy

The Earth is found in the Milky Way galaxy for IGCSE & GCSE Physics revision notes
Our solar system is just one out of potentially billions in our galactic neighbourhood, the Milky Way. There are estimated to be more than 100 billion galaxies in the entire universe

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