What is "galaxy"

Galaxy \Gal"ax*y\, n.; pl. Galaxies. [F. galaxie, L. galaxias, fr. Gr. ? (sc. ? circle), fr. ?, ?, milk; akin to L. lac. Cf. Lacteal.]

1. (Astron.)

   1. The Milky Way, that luminous tract, or belt, which is seen at night stretching across the heavens, and which is composed of innumerable stars, so distant and blended as to be distinguishable only with the telescope.
   --Nichol.

2. A very large collection of stars comparable in size to the Milky Way system, held together by gravitational force and separated from other such star systems by large distances of mostly empty space. Galaxies vary widely in shape and size, the most common nearby galaxies being over 70,000 light years in diameter and separated from each other by even larger distances. The number of stars in one galaxy varies, and may extend into the hundreds of billions.

3. A splendid or impressive assemblage of persons or things; as, a galaxy of movie stars.

late 14c., from French galaxie or directly from Late Latin galaxias "the Milky Way" as a feature in the night sky (in classical Latin via lactea or circulus lacteus)from Greek galaxias (adj.), in galaxias kyklos, literally "milky circle," from gala (genitive galaktos) "milk" (see lactation). The technical astronomical sense in reference to the discrete stellar aggregate including the sun and all visible stars emerged by 1848. Figurative sense of "brilliant assembly of persons" is from 1580s. Milky Way is a translation of Latin via lactea.See yonder, lo, the Galaxyë Which men clepeth the Milky Wey, For hit is whyt. [Chaucer, "House of Fame"]\nOriginally ours was the only one known. Astronomers began to speculate by mid-19c. that some of the spiral nebulae they could see in telescopes were actually immense and immensely distant structures the size and shape of the Milky Way. But the matter was not settled in the affirmative until the 1920s.

n. 1 (context now rare English) The Milky Way; the apparent band of concentrated stars which appears in the night sky over earth. (from 14th c.) 2 (context galaxy English) Any of the collections of many millions of stars, galactic dust, black holes, etc. existing as independent and coherent systems, of which there are billions in the known universe. (from 19th c.)

1. n. a splendid assemblage (especially of famous people)

2. tufted evergreen perennial herb having spikes of tiny white flowers and glossy green round to heart-shaped leaves that become coppery to maroon or purplish in fall [syn: galax, wandflower, beetleweed, coltsfoot, Galax urceolata]

3. (astronomy) a collection of star systems; any of the billions of systems each having many stars and nebulae and dust; "`extragalactic nebula' is a former name for `galaxy'" [syn: extragalactic nebula]

A galaxy is an astronomical system that consists of a large number of stars and other matter.

Galaxy may also refer to:

• The Milky Way, the galaxy containing the Earth's Sun, often referred to as just "The Galaxy"

Galaxy was a British satellite television channel focusing on general entertainment and children's programmes, one of the five channels run by British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) and based at its Battersea Studios in the Marco Polo House Building. The channel broadcast a mix of home-grown programming, American imports and repeats from the BBC library.

Galaxy (previously Guardian) is a canceled prototype space habitat designed by the American firm Bigelow Aerospace, and was intended to be the third spacecraft launched by the company in their efforts to create a commercial space station. Like other modules made by Bigelow Aerospace, Galaxy is based on the inflatable TransHab design by NASA, and was to be used for advanced systems testing before the company launched human-rated vehicles.

A galaxy is a gravitationally bound system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek , literally "milky", a reference to the Milky Way. Galaxies range in size from dwarfs with just a few billion (10) stars to giants with one hundred trillion (10) stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass. Galaxies are categorized according to their visual morphology as elliptical, spiral and irregular. Many galaxies are thought to have black holes at their active centers. The Milky Way's central black hole, known as Sagittarius A*, has a mass four million times greater than the Sun. As of March 2016, GN-z11 is the oldest and most distant observed galaxy with a comoving distance of 32 billion light-years from Earth, and observed as it existed just 400 million years after the Big Bang. Previously, as of July 2015, EGSY8p7 was the most distant known galaxy, estimated to have a light travel distance of 13.2 billion light-years away.

Approximately 170 billion to 200 billion galaxies exist in the observable universe. Most of the galaxies are 1,000 to 100,000 parsecs in diameter and usually separated by distances on the order of millions of parsecs (or megaparsecs). The space between galaxies is filled with a tenuous gas having an average density of less than one atom per cubic meter. The majority of galaxies are gravitationally organized into associations known as galaxy groups, clusters, and superclusters. At the largest scale, these associations are generally arranged into sheets and filaments surrounded by immense voids.

Galaxy (sold as Dove in many countries worldwide and especially Continental Europe) is a brand of milk chocolate, made and marketed by Mars, Incorporated, and first manufactured in the United Kingdom in 1960. Galaxy is sold in the United Kingdom, Ireland, the Middle East, Morocco, India, Pakistan and Egypt. In 2014, Galaxy was ranked the second best selling chocolate bar in the UK, after Cadbury Dairy Milk.

The Galaxy and Dove brands cover a wide range of products including chocolate bars in milk chocolate, caramel, Cookie Crumble, and Fruit & Nut varieties, Minstrels, Ripple (milk chocolate with a folded or "rippled" milk chocolate centre), Amicelli, Duetto, Promises, Bubbles and Truffle. Related brands in other parts of the world include "Jewels", and "Senzi" in the Middle East. The Galaxy and Dove brands also market a wide range of products including ready-to-drink chocolate milk, hot chocolate powder, chocolate cakes, ice cream and more.

The Galaxy series is a family of communications satellites originally developed and operated by Hughes Communications. It has since merged with PanAmSat and is now owned and operated by Intelsat. As one of the earliest geostationary satellites, Galaxy 1 was launched on June 28, 1983. The latest, Galaxy 19, was launched on September 9, 2008. Subsequent satellites were renamed from satellites formerly known under the Intelsat Americas brands.

Galaxy is a scientific workflow, data integration, and data and analysis persistence and publishing platform that aims to make computational biology accessible to research scientists that do not have computer programming experience. Although it was initially developed for genomics research, it is largely domain agnostic and is now used as a general bioinformatics workflow management system.

Galaxy is a 1980 album by the French band Rockets.

Galaxy is the twentyeight single released by the Japanese rock band Buck Tick, released on January 14, 2009.

Galaxy is the seventh studio album by The Jeff Lorber Fusion it was released in January.

Galaxy is the tenth studio album by funk group War. It was their first album released on MCA Records. The album was certified gold.

Galaxy is a former provider of pay television programming in Australia via satellite and wireless cable (microwave) delivery methods.

Galaxy was founded in 1993, and begin test broadcasting on 1 January 1995 via microwave transmission, making it the first provider of pay-TV services in the country. It was officially launched on Australia Day (26 January). At launch only two channels were fully operational, the local Premier Sports and international news channel ANBC. Digital satellite broadcasts began in September 1995.

Galaxy was a joint venture between Continental Century Pay-TV and Australis Media. Each held licenses allowing them to provide four channels of satellite delivered television

Continental Century Pay-TV and Australis Media held exclusive licenses to broadcast pay-TV in Australia via satellite until 1997. Their main competitors were Foxtel and Optus Vision, both of which operated separate cable networks. The Galaxy channel package was franchised to CETV (Later Austar) and East Coast Television (ECTV) in regional areas.

At its peak, there were around 120,000 Galaxy subscribers. The service ceased shortly after Australis Media went into liquidation on 18 May 1998.

Galaxy was a radio network owned by Global Radio and broadcast across the British Isles on FM in regional areas of England and Scotland, through the digital platform with Sky and DAB and online respectively. Stations included stations: Galaxy Birmingham, Galaxy Manchester, Galaxy North East, Galaxy Scotland, Galaxy South Coast and Galaxy Yorkshire. Programming was networked throughout the stations from Leeds - excluding weekday breakfast/drivetime and weekend mornings. On Monday 28 April 2008, Galaxy was rebranded as a mainstream station by Creative Spark with a brand new layout including a fresh logo and a completely new show schedule.

Galaxy Scotland (formerly known as XFM Scotland), launched on Saturday 7 November 2008, and Galaxy South Coast (rebranded from Power FM), launched on Saturday 22 November 2008, as the two new radio stations to join the Galaxy Network which was part of Global Radio's plans to simplify radio stations they own and expand other radio stations across the UK.

Galaxy used RCS Selector and Master Control as its music playout system. According to RAJAR figures, Galaxy was the 7th most listened to radio station in the UK.

The network was rebranded and merged with The Hit Music Network on 3 January 2011 to form ' The Capital FM Network', comprising nine stations in London, Scotland, South East Wales, the West & East Midlands and northern & southern England broadcasting under the Capital FM identity. Local programming on the Hit Music stations is now restricted to daily breakfast and weekday drivetime shows.

"Galaxy" is a song by Australian recording artist Jessica Mauboy featuring Stan Walker. It was written by Richard Vission, Ferras Alqaisi, Brett McLaughlin, Dominique Calvillo, Chico Bennett and Brad Ackley. Production for the song was handled by Vission, Bennett, Ackley, Braddon Williams, Anthony Egizii and David Musumeci. "Galaxy" was released digitally on 28 October 2011, as the fifth single from Mauboy's second studio album Get 'Em Girls (2010). It peaked at number 13 on the ARIA Singles Chart and number seven on the ARIA Urban Singles Chart. "Galaxy" also became Mauboy's first charting release in New Zealand, where it reached number 36.