Creationists Hit the Panic Button After Neil DeGrasse Tyson Demolishes Their Myth That the Universe

[SheilaT]

132. No. Not the entire Universe.

Our galaxy. If our galaxy were the size of the United States, our little solar system would be located where Washington DC is. And looking towards the center of our galaxy, we can only see as far as West Virginia.

Since we can with the naked eye actually see some things that are outside our galaxy, the analogy isn't perfect, but it gives a sense of just how large our galaxy is, and how little of it we see with the naked eye.

The only reason we can see lots of galaxies outside this one is because we use cheaters, I mean telescopes. Without telescopes we can only see a handful of things outside our own galaxy.

It was back in something like 1917 that some astronomer suggested that Andromeda was really something outside our galaxy, and for nearly a decade there was quite a lively debate about that, as astronomers up til then thought perhaps the entire Universe was just our one galaxy. There was some sort of famous debate about it, and then around 1925 it was established that Andromeda was another galaxy, outside of ours. By the way, Milky Way and Andromeda are on a collision course and will intersect in something like three or four billion years from now. Brace yourself!