The Galactic empire

Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is very massive and has ten lesser galaxies, including the two Magellanic Clouds, orbiting around it. In contrast to our galaxy, where star formation is a smooth, continuous process, it seems in the Clouds to occur in bursts. This may be related to their elliptical orbit around the Milky Way, burst occurring at points of closest proximity to us. The remaining eight satellite galaxies are all small, and some details of each are noted. Studying the satellite galaxies offers information about the Milky Way, such as mass, and how it was formed, and how it is acquiring stars from its satellites because of gravitational attraction. (U.K.)