What does «galaxia» mean in Spanish?
- Milky Way, galaxy of which we are a part. In astronomical literature, the capitalized word "Galaxy" is often used to refer to our galaxy, the Milky Way, to distinguish it from the other galaxies in our universe.
- A system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust and dark matter bound by gravitation. Galaxies were initially discovered telescopically and were known as spiral nebulae. Most astronomers of the 18th to 19th centuries regarded them as unresolved star clusters or anagalactic nebulae, and they were thought to be part of the Milky Way, but their true composition and nature remained a mystery. Observations using larger telescopes of a few nearby bright galaxies, such as the Andromeda Galaxy, began to resolve them into huge star clusters, but based simply on the apparent faintness and sheer population of stars, the true distances of these objects placed them far beyond the Milky Way. For this reason they were popularly called island universes, but this term quickly fell into disuse, since the word universe implied the totality of existence. Instead, they became known simply as galaxies.