This course explores one of the fundamental building blocks of the Universe, galaxies.
Galaxies are cities of stars.
We inhabit one containing over 100,000 million stars. The course starts by looking at the components of a galaxy, the way it behaves and the properties it has, before showing there are unexplained facets such as the existence of dark matter. We then study other galaxies, and their similarities and differences to our own Milky Way. We next move to active galactic nuclei, the cores of incredibly luminous galaxies which appear to be powered by the accretion of material onto a central black hole. Clusters of galaxies are studied next, and the interactions and mergers that are continually going on between their component galaxies, and its impact on our understanding of galaxy formation and evolution.