extragalactic

American  

[ek-struh-guh-lak-tik] / ˌɛk strə gəˈlæk tɪk /

adjective

1. outside the Milky Way system.

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extragalactic British  

/ ˌɛkstrəɡəˈlæktɪk /

adjective

1. occurring or existing beyond the Galaxy

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Etymology

Origin of extragalactic

First recorded in 1850–55; extra- + galactic

Example Sentences

Kewley says the work highlights how chemical signatures in a galaxy's gas can be used to uncover its past, establishing extragalactic archaeology as a powerful new approach.

From Science Daily • Mar. 23, 2026

Unlike the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescopes, which focus deeply on one part of the sky at a time, scientists will use Euclid to cover wide swaths of the extragalactic sky at once.

From New York Times • Jul. 1, 2023

An extragalactic outburst whose light hurtled through the inner solar system last fall was 70 times brighter than any other such eruption that scientists have observed, researchers report.

From Scientific American • Mar. 29, 2023

The rate at which IceCube detects extragalactic neutrinos is “a strong hint that these are the sources,” says theorist Eli Waxman of the Weizmann Institute of Science.

From Science Magazine • Mar. 31, 2021

At such a rate, we will reach it in ten billion years, and extragalactic astronomy will then be a great deal easier.

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan