Our Galaxy
The shape, size and history of the Milky Way, and how we mapped a galaxy we can never leave.
Grades 6-12About 15 minutes of narrated flight, plus discussion stops9 stops
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What students will see and do
Students start at the Sun and follow its 230-million-year orbit, visit star clusters and the spiral arms, pull back to see the whole disk, dive to the black hole at the center, meet neighbor galaxies, and finish with how to see the Milky Way themselves.
Learning objectives
- Describe the shape and size of the Milky Way and the Sun's place in it
- Explain how astronomers mapped the galaxy from inside it
- Describe evidence for dark matter from the way stars orbit
- Explain how the Milky Way grew by merging with smaller galaxies
NGSS connections
| MS-ESS1-2 | Gravity holds the galaxy together and governs the Sun's orbit around the center. |
|---|---|
| MS-ESS1-3 | Scale properties of the galaxy: size, thickness, distances to the center and neighbors. |
| HS-ESS1-2 (extension) | Galaxies form and grow over billions of years in an evolving universe. |
| DCI ESS1.A | The Universe and Its Stars. |
Stops on this journey
- Our place: the Sun
- Star clusters
- The spiral arms (discussion stop)
- The shape of the galaxy
- The heart of the galaxy
- Neighbor galaxies (discussion stop)
- The galaxy's family
- Seeing ourselves from outside
- Seeing the Milky Way yourself
Vocabulary
- galaxy
- spiral arm
- disk
- halo
- globular cluster
- galactic year
- dark matter
- dwarf galaxy