The Perseid Meteor Showers begin their most impressive period of falling tonight. We're milking the heavenly comings and goings with a look at the words galaxy and myriad. (来源：老牌的英语学习网站 http://www.EnglishCN.com)

Galaxy refers to any of the very large group of stars and associated matter that are found throughout the universe. Milky Way Galaxy refers to the galaxy of which the sun and the solar system are a part and which contains the myriads of stars that create the light of the Milky Way, the broad luminous irregular band of light that stretches completely around the celestial sphere.

The terms Milky Way and galaxy made their first known appearance in English in a poem by Chaucer in the lines "See yonder, lo, the galaxy, which they call the Milky Way, because it is white."

That clears up any mystery about milky way, but what about galaxy? The ancient Greeks also noticed the whiteness of the myriads of stars; galaxy has its origin in the Greek word for "milk."

Where does myriad fit in this mix? Like galaxy, myriad has its origin in Greek. Its Greek ancestor meant both "countless" and "ten thousand"; used as an English noun, myriad means both "ten thousand" and "a great number," as in "a myriad of" (or "myriads of") "stars showering down."

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