welcome to the milky way

[As galáxias são algo fora da nossa percepção física. Não podemos olhá-las com os nossos olhos. Mas somos parte minúscula de uma. Existem várias e está-se sempre a descobrir mais.]

Milky Way 'ancestors' discovered
Astronomers probing the distant Universe have found the building blocks of spiral galaxies like our Milky Way. They discovered ancient galaxies, about one-tenth the size of the Milky Way, which were among the first to form in the Universe. Over billions of years, galaxies like these merged to form much bigger spiral galaxies such as our own. The findings were outlined at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Austin, Texas. The ancient objects – known as Lyman alpha-emitting galaxies - are fertile breeding grounds for new stars. Astronomers see them as they looked when the Universe was just two billion years old.
Stars reveal the Milky Way's age
Our galaxy - from the outside