Re: Are there any universes beyond the milky way?

     I think what you may be asking is if there are any galaxies beyond 
the Milky Way.  There's a big difference between a galaxy and the 
Universe.   A galaxy is a huge collection of stars, gas, and dust while 
the Universe is really the 'thing' that contains all the galaxies.  
Sometimes galaxies are called 'island universes' because they are like 
little islands floating in space.
     But to answer your question:  Yes!  There are galaxies beyond the 
Milky Way.  In fact, we probably couldn't count them all even if we wanted 
to!  If we were to take a picture of a tiny slice of the sky we could 
easily see over a million galaxies - that's 1,000,000  - or a very big 
number!
     But how can we be absolutely sure that other galaxies exist?  In the 
1800s astronomers began to notice objects in their telescopes that looked 
like collections of gas and dust.  They called these objects 'nebulae'.  
No one really knew what these nebulae were until the 1880s when 
astronomers began taking pictures of these nebulae through their 
telescopes.  This allowed them to see the objects much better than if they 
were looking with just their eyes.  But now astronomers started to argue 
over whether these objects were really galaxies just like our Milky Way or 
if they really were just collections of gas and dust.  
     The argument was finally settled when astronomers used something 
called spectroscopy to study these nebulae.  Spectroscopy just means that 
astronomers were studying the light coming from these nebulae.  They 
noticed that the light coming from the nebulae was just like light coming 
from stars!  Finally the debate was settled.  These nebulae were not 
collections of gas and dust - they were collections of stars - they were 
really galaxies just like our Milky Way!
     As astronomers kept taking more and more pictures they found that 
there are a lot of different types of galaxies.  Some galaxies are spiral 
shaped (like a pinwheel) just like our Milky Way and some are what we call 
elliptical shaped and look like a ball or an egg.  Galaxies also have 
different colors.  Some are blue and some are yellow and some are both 
blue and yellow.
     Now I bet you're wondering how we found out about the Milky Way is a 
galaxy.  Well, if you go out on a moonless night in a place that is very 
dark you can see a glowing strip of light that crosses they sky.  This is 
the Milky Way.  Philosophers over 2,000 years ago thought that this strip 
was made up of stars, and a scientist named Galileo proved this in the 
early 1600s when he started using a telescope to look at the night sky.  
Since we know that a galaxy is a huge collection of stars, gas, and dust, 
the Milky Way must be a galaxy.  Using modern cameras and things like 
space probes we can actually see what the Milky Way looks like.

	There are several web sites on the Internet that have really neat 
pictures of galaxies including our own Milky Way.  Here are a few you 
might want to look up:
 http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/user/gr/public/gal_milky.html
 http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/html/milky_way.html
 http://seds.lpl.arizona.edu/messier/more/mw.html
 http://www.smv.org/hastings/student2.htm 
(this one has links to games 
about galaxies!)

If you would like to learn more about galaxies, almost any astronomy book 
will be able to provide you with information.  I consulted these two books:

1.  A Chronicle of Pre-Telescopic Astronomy by Barry Hetherington
2.  Discovering Astronomy, Third Edition by R. Robert Robbins, William H. 
Jefferys, and Stephen J. Shawl