On that same scale, the Triangulum Galaxy would be about 2.7 kilometers away. Light takes 2.7 million years to get here from the Triangulum Galaxy, so what you are looking at is the Triangulum Galaxy as it was 2.7 million years ago.
What it is made of
A spiral galaxy, the third biggest in the Local Group after Andromeda and the Milky Way; patchy, irregular 'flocculent' arms.
What makes it worth knowing
Contains NGC 604, a giant star-forming nursery roughly 40 times bigger than the Orion Nebula.
Its name and its story
Named for the ancient Greek constellation Triangulum — a simple three-star shape without a dramatic myth of its own.
Choose by the older end of a band, or read together. Nothing is locked and nothing is hidden — what changes is how much of the sky is listed and which pages are offered.
We read togetherread together, up to 9
The smallest sky: 27 things you can find from a garden, a short line each, and a question you answer by going outside.
I like readingabout 9 to 12
The site as it is written, with a wider sky. The cosmic ladder and the far end of the catalogue wait one level up.
I like working things out12 and up
Everything: the whole catalogue, and the seven rung pages that work out how anybody knows a distance.
About the cosmic ladder
The seven rungs are the argument the site is built on: how anybody knows a distance, one step at a time. They lean on school maths — ratios and angles, then squares and cubes, then how light fades with distance. That is about what a twelve-year-old has met, which is why this level starts at twelve. Each rung shows its sum in the open, with what it means said in words beside it, so the argument can be followed without doing any of them.
About the writing
Plain, but not written down. Measured, each level's pages sit near the top of the ages it names, so choose by the older end. The astronomy is not simplified either. If a page feels heavy, that is the page and not the reader — the control makes the sky narrower, not the words easier.
✉️ Contact me
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⚪ Credits
AstroKids is made with love for young space explorers.
Mascot art: Perl & Spark, original illustrations.
Planet facts & orbits based on public NASA / JPL data.
Space agencies: NASA & ESA — public images and data.
Fonts: Fredoka & Nunito (Google Fonts).
Inspiration: NASA, ESA, and everyone who looks up at night.
Everything on AstroKids
One list of the whole site. If you know what you are looking for, it is here; if you do not, the four areas above are a better place to start.