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Narration 

    
     Our Place in Space

     The universe is enormous. There are more galaxies in the universe than people on Earth. Each galaxy shines with the light of billions of stars. Between those stars are planets, comets, asteroids and black holes--not to mention a whole lot of empty space. Just where do we fit into all this vastness? Our small blue planet Earth is the third planet from the Sun. The Sun and its nine planets make up the solar system. Our Sun is a star, just like any other. Our Sun along with other stars belong to what is called our local star group.  It includes our closest star neighbors like Alpha Centauri and Sirius. Our local star group--of which Earth is part because we circle one of the stars, the Sun--is in the Milky Way galaxy. the Milky Way is a spiral shaped galaxy with wispy arms that spin out from its center. ( Other galaxies are shaped quite differently.) Our local star group lies in one of these arms called Orion. The Orion arm is toward the Milky Way galaxy about 2/3 of the way from the spiral's center. The Milky Way itself is only a tiny part of a grouping of galaxies called a super cluster. These super clusters form chains and ribbons of worlds within worlds across our corner of the universe. The universe extends from Earth for at least 10 billion light years, and it's probably still expanding! 

...Skye