If all the stars are orbiting a super-massive black hole at the centre, why are they only orbiting in roughly one plane? Granted that once they have momentum in that plane the centripetal force of gravity should tend to keep them in that plane, but after the big bang what force caused them to form in that shape?

Consider a tiny cell. And in this cell there are millions of atoms(or more). Now consider a galaxy where it too, includes millions of solar systems(which looks like atoms).

So the question is, does anybody else think that our solar system is nothing more than a tiny atom inside a cell(known as the Milky Way) of something very, very huge?

my question is as we can see the sun with naked eye, it is older than 8 mintues (calculated as per light travels in one year). which means if we see the current space or maybe a galaxy or stars they are older to recent time so how can we see the recent activity of stars and galaxy? Are we looking old stuff of space ? Can we ever look at the newer stuff of space ?

if we dont have sun in our solar system ? and All the planets were not moving ? Like the thought as Earth is moving rotational spin and other planets are freezed position !

What if we loose gravity of the earth for some seconds ? And also the gravity of our universe or galaxy ?

Whenever you see the Starship Enterprise off on a mission, an 'outside' shot always shows the vessel in full visiblity - but how visible would it be? must you always be illuminated by lights on the top, or a planet nearby? If we were away from any planets and suns, and I were to space walk a few hundred yards away from the ship, and it had no lights on the outside, would I only see stars and a black 'shadow' where the ship was? Or is there always residual light? could I for example see my own hand in front of my face? or is there a point where you can see nothing nearby, but only stars and galaxies in the distance?

This one's making my brain hurt.

Given the enormity of galactic bodies, doesn't it follow that (unless we're lucky enough to regard a galaxy at an exact right angle to its plane of rotation) the light from its more distant edge has taken aeons longer to reach us than that from its nearer edge?

Consequently, doesn't it follow that the "flat" images our telescopes are seeing are hopelessly distorted versions of what's really there?

I've seen many CG fly-through videos of stars and galaxies which provide awe-inspiring viewing. Watch just about any episode of Star Trek too and you will see stars rushing by at warp speed. Obviously in the former example, no object could travel as fast the hypothetical speeds of the 'viewer' in these videos (unless we could assume it's a slide-show of instantaneous transporting from one point to another), and in the latter warp speed has yet to be achieved. But I was wondering what warp speed would actually look like? If stars and galaxies are emitting light that has taken vastly different periods of time to reach one point in the universe, how would it look to the person travelling at warp speed if he or she were traversing these 'points' at much faster speeds than light? (Assuming that light can be seen at warp speed.)For example, if we were to somehow "travel" (our slide-show of instantaneous transporting from one 'slide' to another) so fast that we could reach our nearest galaxy, Andromeda, within an hour, we would surely see it evolve at an unprecedented rate since each point on our path we would be reaching light emitted nearer the present. If we take this example and apply it to those CG fly-through videos, would we -in effect- be traveling through time as well as space? Would we see objects in front of us evolve and objects that have passed us de-evolve? (Again, if we assume we are travelling through space as though we were flicking through a slideshow rather than actual motion where I'm sure Einstein's special theory of relativity would have something to say on the matter.)