"Blondie" wrote in
:

I have unsuccessfully searched high and low for the answer to the
following question and now hope that somebody here may be able to help.
What is the order of things in space, ie, is a galaxy part of the milky
way, is the solar system part of a galaxy, is the universe the whole
thing or is it part of something bigger etc and when you look at a star
at night is it a single star or is it a group like our planets and the
sun etc, gee I hope somebody can explain and if so thank you.

Let's start with stars. When you look at a star it may or may not have
planets like our sun does. Even with good scientific instruments it's
often impossible to tell because stars are so far away. Stars themselves
sometimes group together- generally only two, called a double star or
binary star. This is often easy to see with a telescope.

A solar system is bigger than a star. It includes the star and its planets,
if any.

A galaxy is a large group of stars. The milky way is one galaxy- the one
in which our sun resides. A local group is a collection of galaxies.

The universe is the whole thing. So, a star and its planets are a solar
system; a solar system is part of a galaxy; a galaxy is part of a local
group; a local group is part of the universe.

--
Steve Gray