The Hat in the Stars
If you look through a powerful telescope at the Virgo constellation, you might spot a giant, glowing hat floating in space! This is the Sombrero Galaxy, and it looks just like a wide-brimmed hat because it has a massive ball of stars in the middle and a dark ring of dust around the edge. This "space hat" is hugeâit is 50,000 light-years wide and has about 2,000 glowing balls of stars, called clusters, buzzing around it. It is probably the only hat in the universe that is too big for anyone to wear! Learn more!
Wee Ones
Imagine you see two groups of stars. One group has 5 bright stars and the other has only 2. Which group has more stars?
Little Kids
The Sombrero Galaxy has about 2,000 star clusters. Is the number 2,000 an even number or an odd number?
Big Kids
If a scientist finds 250 star clusters on one side of the galaxy and 350 more on the other side, how many star clusters did they find in total?
The Sky's the Limit
The Sombrero Galaxy is located about 30,000,000 (30 million) light-years away from Earth. How would you express this large number in scientific notation?