When we look up to the sky, we can see the galaxy spread in front of us – and if it’s dark enough, we can even see the Milky Way!

Did you know that both the words “galaxy” and “Milky Way” were coined by the same writer, in the same poem? Geoffrey Chaucer, a poet best known for The Canterbury Tales, also wrote a poem in the late 1300s called The House of Fame:

“…And so I saw all that company

Both walk and fly alongside me.

‘Now, cast up your eye,’ quoth he,

See yonder, lo, the Galaxy,

Which men call the Milky Way…”

It’s amazing to think that 600 years ago people were looking up at the same sky as we do.
Let our gallery of galaxy artwork take your mind back to Chaucer’s time – and then to the future, and what future generations may ponder about us.