Greek Names of Galaxies
The Greek names of galaxies did not come overnight. In the ancient times there were only a few hundred stars, a few planets (those that were visible), the sun and the moon, that had names. Today there are millions of stars with names. Most galaxies do not have names but there are a few which were named by the Greek and a few others later. Most of the galaxies just have a catalog number attached to them. Today only the IAU (The International Astronomical Union) is allowed to name the galaxies and stars. In the 19th century the nature of the galaxies was not yet understood and there are early records or catalogs which just group the clusters of stars as open clusters, globular clusters, nebulas, and galaxies. There were 110 of them which had been grouped like this. The New General Catalogue by J. L. E. Dreyer 1888 was a lot bigger and it contains around 8000 listings.
A These planets and stars were given names from the Greek or the Roman myths and they matched the ancient planet names. Uranus was discovered in 1781, by Sir William Herschel and he called it Georgium Sidus (which meant George’s Star). This name was in honor of King George III. The French called it Herschel, then Johann Bode (a German), suggested that they call it Uranus, after the Greek and Roman god.
The word galaxy (from the Greek word galaxias) means milky and is a reference to The Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way is a vast group of stars along with a medium of gas and dust, and dark matter. Galaxies consist of anywhere from a dwarf galaxy which might have about 10 million stars, to the giant ones which contain trillions of stars. All of them orbit a center of mass. The galaxy can contain multiple star systems. For example, the sun is a star in the Milky Way galaxy.
The galaxies have different shapes. There are spiral galaxies which are disk shape with curving and dusty arms. Peculiar galaxies are those with unusual shapes. The most common form of galaxy is the elliptical galaxy. They have an ellipse shaped light shape.
The Milky Way is derived from the Greek word galaxias (or galaxy as we know it), and it means milky circle. According to Greek mythology, Zeus put his son, who was born of a mortal woman, on goddess Hera’s (Zeus’ wife) breast so the baby could drink Hera’s milk and become immortal. As the myth goes, Hera woke up and discovered a strange baby nursing and she pushed the baby away. As she did this a stream of her milk sprayed the night sky. This caused a band of light which we know as the Milky Way.
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