Space, and it's exploration is NASA's primary goal. Space is a vast area of empty as the name implies "space". It contains trillions of stars and planets and other objects.
What occupies space in the universe?[]
The observable universe consists of mainly dark energy, dark matter, and visible matter along with anti-matter and electromagnetic radiation and anti-matter.
From the largest scales of the the universe downwards: there is huge web-like structures made of matter which doesn't interact with light, and is hard to see with telescopes - called dark matter. Normally visible matter is gravitationally attracted to these structures and form huge galaxy filaments - and voids. These filaments are made of complexes of galaxy super-clusters, galaxy walls, and galaxy sheets. At a level below that there are galactic clusters and superclusters, galaxies with their orbiting satellite galaxies like the Magellanic cloud.Within galaxies are there are structures like arms, galactic halos, galactic jets down to smaller scale structures like nebulae or star clusters. Each star's solar system can consist of objects like multiple stars in various stages of their lifecycles, planets, planetoids, moons, asteroids, comets, dust, gas, ejections like solar flares, and so on. In the space between galaxies there can be isolated smaller objects e.g. star clusters or planets without a solar system like rogue planets.
Constellations[]
Constellations are shapes in groups of stars that people traced and combined together - in a connect-the-dots way - in older times. Constellations are found all the way back to cave paintings. The IAU designated constellations are based roughly on greek constellations. A list of the Constellations are,
Andromeda
Antlia
Apus
Aquarius
Aquila
Ara
Aries
Auriga
Bootes
Caelum
Camelopardalis
Cancer
Canes Venatici
Canis Major
Canis Minor
Capricornus
Carina
Cassiopeia
Centaurus
Cepheus
Cetus
Chamaleon
Circinus
Columba
Coma Berenices
Corona Australis
Corona Borealis
Corvus
Crater
Crux
Cygnus
Delphinus
Dorado
Draco
Equuleus
Eridanus
Fornax
Gemini
Grus
Hercules
Horologium
Hydra
Hydrus
Indus
Lacerta
Leo
Leo Minor
Lepus
Libra
Lupus
Lynx
Lyra
Mensa
Microscopium
Monoceros
Musca
Norma
Octans
Ophiucus
Orion
Pavo
Pegasus
Perseus
Phoenix
Pictor
Pisces
Pisces Austrinus
Puppis
Pyxis
Reticulum
Sagitta
Sagittarius
Scorpius
Sculptor
Scutum
Serpens
Sextans
Taurus
Telescopium
Triangulum
Triangulum Australe
Tucana
Ursa Major
Ursa Minor
Vela
Virgo
Volans
Vulpecula
Galaxies[]
Milky Way Galaxy[]
Planets[]
There are over 1,000,000,000 planets in the Milky way alone, but the most known are the ones in our solar system. They are:
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto*
Other planets are called Exo-Planets
- expelled
Moons[]
There are even more moons than Planets in the milky way (over 1,000,000,000,000) of them, but once again only the ones in our solar system are worth naming.
- Phobos
- Deimos
- Metis, Adrastea, Amalthea and Thebe
- Io
- Europa
- Ganymede
- Callisto
- Leda
- Himalia
- Lysithea
- Elara
- Ananke
- Carme
- Pasiphae
- Sinope
- Pan and Atlas
- Prometheus and Pandora
- Epimetheus
- Janus
- Mimas
- Enceladus
- Tethys
- Telesto
- Calypso
- Dione
- Helene
- Rhea
- Titan
- Hyperion
- Iapetus
- Phoebe
Missions inside the solar system[]
See Missions to look at a list of all space probes in the solar system.