![]() ![]() ![]() Known as the "Great Debate," astronomers discussed whether or not some of these distant nebulae were other galaxies or star-forming regions within the Milky Way. The nebulae that Hubble was interested in were a subject of intense debate in astronomy, as different groups of astronomers debated what precisely these objects were. Before the 1920s, astronomers thought that what we now know as distant galaxies were nebulae within the Milky Way. Nebulae are vast regions of star-forming material that exist throughout the Milky Way. Using what was one of the most advanced telescopes at the time, Hubble sought to determine the distance to what were believed to be stellar nebulae. This view of the universe first came to light in the late 1920s, when astronomer Edwin Hubble made a remarkable discovery using the Mt. We now know that the universe is not static and that it is, in fact, home to hundreds of billions, perhaps even trillions, of individual galaxies. Today, however, our universe picture is far different from this. The rest of the universe was infinite and static in its expanse. Before the late 1930s, it was widely held that the universe was composed of nothing more than the Milky Way galaxy and the stars and planets contained within it. Less than a century ago, our view of the universe was radically different than it is today. Galaxies And The Great Debate The Milky Way Galaxy Seen in the Night Sky Thus, we can define a galaxy as an astronomical object that contains millions to billions of stars from multiple generations, all of which are bound by gravity. For the purpose of this discussion, we will consider the defining factor of a galaxy to be the existence of multiple generations of stars, mainly because this is something that star clusters generally lack. Even with the definition provided above, there is no distinction between a galaxy and a large star cluster. Interestingly, there is no agreed-upon definition of what a galaxy is. A galaxy is an astronomical structure containing millions to billions of stars, gas, and dust bound together by gravity. ![]()
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