Hey Friends!
Happy Friday! Do you know what a galaxy is? A galaxy is a group of stars, clouds of gas, and dust particles that move together through the universe. ... They formed soon after the universe began. We live on a planet called Earth that is part of our solar system. But where is our solar system? It’s a small part of the Milky Way Galaxy. This is called our "solar address!"
Happy Friday! Do you know what a galaxy is? A galaxy is a group of stars, clouds of gas, and dust particles that move together through the universe. ... They formed soon after the universe began. We live on a planet called Earth that is part of our solar system. But where is our solar system? It’s a small part of the Milky Way Galaxy. This is called our "solar address!"
When you look up at stars in the night sky, you’re seeing other stars in the Milky Way. If it’s really dark, far away from lights from cities and houses, you can even see the dusty bands of the Milky Way stretch across the sky. There are many galaxies besides ours, though. There are so many, we can’t even count them all yet! The Hubble Space Telescope looked at a small patch of space for 12 days and found 10,000 galaxies, of all sizes, shapes, and colors. Some scientists think there could be as many as one hundred billion galaxies in the universe.

Some galaxies are spiral-shaped like ours. They have curved arms that make it look like a pinwheel. Other galaxies are smooth and oval shaped. They’re called elliptical galaxies. And there are also galaxies that aren’t spirals or ovals. They have irregular shapes and look like blobs. The light that we see from each of these galaxies comes from the stars inside it.
Time to Paint a Galaxy!

Materials:
Steps:
First, make sure you have a protected space to work! You might want to go outside, as this can get messy!
Get a large piece of cardboard, paint it black and let it fully dry.
Dip your brush in white or gray paint, and tap it on your finger over your paper to create a splatter. Continue to splatter around this area without adding more paint to the brush. This will be the brightest spot in the painting.
With more cardboard about the same size of your paper, make two oval stencils. One stencil should be a little larger than the other. Your ovals can be tilted a bit if you want! Put both stencils on top of the black paper.
- Cardboard boxes
- Scissors
- White/gray/ yellow/ blue paint
- brushes
- Adult's help
Steps:
First, make sure you have a protected space to work! You might want to go outside, as this can get messy!
Get a large piece of cardboard, paint it black and let it fully dry.
Dip your brush in white or gray paint, and tap it on your finger over your paper to create a splatter. Continue to splatter around this area without adding more paint to the brush. This will be the brightest spot in the painting.
With more cardboard about the same size of your paper, make two oval stencils. One stencil should be a little larger than the other. Your ovals can be tilted a bit if you want! Put both stencils on top of the black paper.

Dip the brush in paint and use your thumb to pull back on the bristles, letting the paint spatter onto the paper. You should get a very fine mist of paint. Pull back on the bristles again and again until no more paint is spraying. Re-dip and splatter again. Do this until you are satisfied with the coverage.
Remove the inner stencil and do more splattering. Do about half the amount you did with the center stencil in place. Remove the outer stencil and do a few more splatters!
You've created your own painting of a galaxy! When you look up at the stars at night, just think -- there may be a galaxy that looks just like the one you painted out there somewhere!
Remove the inner stencil and do more splattering. Do about half the amount you did with the center stencil in place. Remove the outer stencil and do a few more splatters!
You've created your own painting of a galaxy! When you look up at the stars at night, just think -- there may be a galaxy that looks just like the one you painted out there somewhere!