• Question: Are galaxys hot or cold? *v*

    Asked by anon-245772 to Samantha on 10 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Samantha Faircloth

      Samantha Faircloth answered on 10 Mar 2020:

      Hello Matilda, a great question! As you know, galaxies are massive! The Earth is in the Solar System which is a very small arm of the Milky Way galaxy. It is believed that, overall, galaxies are quite hot. That’s because they are surrounded by hot gases that don’t seem to be cooling as fast as scientists might think! Temperatures are thought to be between 100,000 and one million degrees! 🙂

Comments

  • Photo: David

    David commented on :

    Galaxies can have extremely cold pockets of gas, just a few degrees above the absolute zero! These are regions that typically end up collapsing and forming stars and planets.

    Galaxies can also be incredibly hot, particularly towards the outside where it’s really really boiling and even atoms with a lot of electrons get to lose them because of how hot it is!

    Galaxies are therefore both super cool (cold) but also super hot, just depends on the part of the galaxy and what it is made of.