Stars - What's up there?
What's up there?
Ancient people were intrigued by what we now call the Milky WayThe galaxy in which our solar system is located.. What was this band of light that stretched across the skies, they wondered. According to Greek legend, droplets of milk spilt upwards when Juno breastfed the infant Hercules. That's why this light became known as the Milky Way.
Democritus, a Greek philosopher, realized the truth in the fifth century B.C. He suggested that countless stars, too faint to be seen individually, make up the Milky Way. In 1609, when the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) focused the telescope he had made, the immense number of stars he saw staggered him. Galileo confirmed that the Milky Way is made up of innumerable stars grouped in clusters.
[The entire page is 152 words long]
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