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Space Zone

The Andromeda Galaxy is a spiral galaxy about 2.5 million light-years from earth (that's around 24 million-trillion km). It is the largest neighbor of the Milky Way.

The Andromeda Galaxy, a spiral galaxy about 2.5 million light-years from earth (that’s around 24 million-trillion km). [Image: Pixabay/Wikiimages]

We know the Sun to be the centre of our solar system, just as other stars form the centre of many other solar systems. The Earth and the other planets in our solar system revolve about the Sun. But our sun is on the outskirts of a galaxy called the Milky Way, and the Milky Way is not the only galaxy.

The universe is thought to contain something like 100 billion galaxies, and each galaxy might contain something like 100 billion stars. Outer space is the void beyond any celestial body, such as planets and stars. There are only a few particles scattered here and there in space, whereas a cubic metre of the air we breathe on Earth contains millions of molecules.

In this zone you’ll meet a scientist designing ways to allow people with sight problems to learn about space, a scientist studying massive explosions from the Sun that cause problems for us on Earth, and a scientist working on ways to find out when neutron stars collide. There’s a scientist organising the design and manufacture of Multi-Layer Insulations, which help keep a spacecraft’s temperature at the right level. One scientist is trying to find the size of structures around supermassive black holes, while another develops instruments to generate light that can interact with matter in space.