A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstel

lar gas and dust, and dark matter.[1][2] The word galaxy is derived from the Gre
ek galaxias (?a?a??a?), literally "milky", a reference to the Milky Way. Example
s of galaxies range from dwarfs with just a few thousand (103) stars to giants w
ith one hundred trillion (1014) stars,[3] each orbiting their galaxy's own cente
r of mass. Galaxies can be categorized according to their visual morphology, inc
luding elliptical,[4] spiral, and irregular.[5] Many galaxies are believed to ha
ve black holes at their active centers. The Milky Way's central black hole, know
n as Sagittarius A*, has a mass four million times that of our Sun.[6] As of May
2015, EGS-zs8-1 is the most distant known galaxy, estimated to be 13.1 billion
light-years away and to have 15% of the mass of the Milky Way.[7][8][9][10]
There are approximately 170 billion (1.7 1011) galaxies in the observable univer
se.[11] Most of the galaxies are 1,000 to 100,000 parsecs in diameter and usuall
y separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs). T
he space between galaxies is filled with a tenuous gas with an average density l
ess than one atom per cubic meter. The majority of galaxies are gravitationally
organized into associations known as galaxy groups, clusters, and superclusters.
At the largest scale, these associations are generally arranged into sheets and
filaments that are surrounded by immense voids.[12]
Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Nomenclature
3 Observation history
3.1 Milky Way
3.2 Distinction from other nebulae
3.3 Modern research
4 Types and morphology
4.1 Ellipticals
4.1.1 Shell galaxy
4.2 Spirals
4.2.1 Barred Spiral Galaxy
4.3 Other morphologies
4.4 Dwarfs
5 Unusual dynamics and activities
5.1 Interacting
5.2 Starburst
5.3 Active nucleus
5.3.1 Blazars
5.3.2 LINERS
5.3.3 Seyfert Galaxy
5.3.4 Quasar
5.4 Luminous infrared galaxy
6 Formation and evolution
6.1 Formation
6.1.1 Early galaxies
6.1.2 Early galaxy formation
6.2 Evolution
6.3 Future trends
7 Larger-scale structures
8 Multi-wavelength observation
9 See also
10 Notes
11 References
11.1 Other references
12 Bibliography
13 External links
Etymology[edit]
The word galaxy derives from the Greek term for our own galaxy, galaxias (?a?a??

a?, "milky one"), or kyklos galaktikos ("milky circle")[13] due to its appearanc
e as a "milky" band of light in the sky. In Greek mythology, Zeus places his son
born by a mortal woman, the infant Heracles, on Hera's breast while she is asle
ep so that the baby will drink her divine milk and will thus become immortal. He
ra wakes up while breastfeeding and then realizes she is nursing an unknown baby
: she pushes the baby away and a jet of her milk sprays the night sky, producing
the faint band of light known as the Milky Way.[14][15]
In the astronomical literature, the capitalized word "Galaxy" is often used to r
efer to our galaxy, the Milky Way, to distinguish it from the other galaxies in
our universe. The English term Milky Way can be traced back to a story by Chauce
r c.?1380:
"See yonder, lo, the Galaxy
Which men clepeth the Milky Wey,
For hit is whyt."
Geoffrey Chaucer, The House of Fame[13]
When William Herschel assembled his catalog of deep sky objects in 1786, he used
the term spiral nebula for certain objects such as M31. These would later be re
cognized as conglomerations of stars when the true distance to these objects beg
an to be appreciated, and they would later be termed island universes. However,
the word Universe was understood to mean the entirety of existence, so this expr
ession fell into disuse and the objects instead became known as galaxies.[16]