How it all began fully explained for people who don't take reality seriously
Part 1: Getting Started
Part 3: Getting Back to Basics
PART 2: GETTING UP TO SPEED
To the more sociable bits making balls was irresistible and the fad spread like wildfire. This sort of thing was going on all over the place as far as the eye could see, in fact, farther than that. As the balls grew bigger and bigger they got overcrowded and all the bits started rubbing up against each other causing a great deal of friction and hot tempers which made the balls heat up and start glowing white hot. This is how stars are made. Some say stars are born, considering their size and temperature this would be mighty painful. Thankfully they're out in the vast, cold expanse of space so there's no problem.
Sometimes the mad rush to the center was overdone and the particles got mushed up collapsing like a house of cards. The result: an entire star reduced to the size of a ping pong ball. (Not much sporting use for that, considering the heft of the thing.) These are called black holes because they consume everything that comes close, including light. (Greedy is the word I'd use. Maybe they should be called greedy holes, but it's not up to me.) Black holes also have an event horizon, which might be more spectacular than a sunset or northern lights. The likelihood of ever running into one where a visitor's guide is useful is remote, so I'll just let it go.
Stars like our sun seem to be all warm and friendly, spreading light and generally making life pleasant, but this is at a distance. Up close a star is like a living hell. It's so hot the particles have to keep moving to keep cool. But it's so crowded the bits smash into each other fusing together making bigger particles. This is called fusion. (You'd think it'd be called fusing, what can I tell you?) This releases energy just adding fuel to the fire. Dash a couple hydrogens together and you get helium. Shove in another and you get... something bigger. This is how heavy elements are made. Pretty much alchemy on a vast scale.
Eventually the star gets full of these heavy elements churning around its fiery innards giving it a sort-of solar indigestion. Stars are spinning like crazed dervishes which makes them dizzy, so you can guess what happens next. It throws up spewing chunks of heavy elements all around creating vast debris fields. The call goes out, "Clean-up on star twenty-five." The chunks are swept up into clumps of smaller balls. These balls of heavy bits didn't have enough friction or excitement to become stars. (We can't all be stars.) These balls would be planets, and in fact are.
Planets are law-abiding souls, unlike the people that might populate them, as you know if you watch COPS. One law they really abide is the law of gravity, which says everything is drawn to everything else, where you are I want to be, so come here. Which reads more like a bad song lyric, but that's the gist of it. Planets are very attracted to stars and desperately want to get to them. They're like groupies, Sun worshipers in the case of our solar system. So they fling themselves at the stars with reckless abandon, little realizing the stars would chew them up and spit them out without a second thought.
Now, everything in space is going at incredible speeds over enormous distances, though you wouldn't know it to look at it. If the planet's aim is off, or the star sidesteps, it passes right by. The speeding planet can't turn quickly enough and so goes round and round the star never managing to catch it, whirling about like a moth to a flame, feeding off the warm glow and glamour of it all.
Some debris balls never get up to planet size. Too small to get a star's attention, they hook up with a planet figuring they can sneak in with it when the star isn't looking. These are satellites, or moons depending how romantic the planets feel about them.
Even smaller chunks became what we call meteors. What beings on other planets call them is unknown. These meteors have no minds of their own and will go for anything, wander anywhere and get pulled into whatever comes close or catches their fancy. Very fickle and unreliable these meteors, they'll ditch a star or a planet at the drop of a hat, if the hat is big enough.
Once the solar systems were running smoothly the continuum organized them together, gathering them up in a sort-of space empire. This is called a galaxy, from the Greek "galaxi" meaning a big bunch of stars. Bit of circular logic there, but so it goes. Organizational plans, such as picturesque figure eights, cloverleafs, mobius strips, and other exotic shapes were considered, but the Newtonian Principals had enough on their hands without having to co-ordinate all that. They decided either a pancake or a pinwheel shape was just the ticket. Plus, these arrangements required no additional training for the balls as they already knew how to go in circles.
Part 1: Getting Started
Part 3: Getting Back to Basics