How To See Images Of Galaxies Like The Milky Way Form In Space

How does a galaxy like our own Milky Way form? Until now there’s been a lot of inferring involved in answering that question.

The basic story is that gas collects toward the center of roughly spherical “halos” of matter. The gas then cools, condenses, fragments and eventually collapses to form stars. Generations of stars build up the galaxy and with it the production of heavy elements – such as carbon, oxygen and so on – that populate our periodic table and comprise our familiar physical world.