๐ช Space and stars โจ Stars and galaxies
The Milky Way
๐ In short
The Milky Way is our galaxy, where we live with the Sun, the Earth and the whole solar system. It has hundreds of billions of stars and big clouds of gas and dust. On dark nights we see it as a fuzzy white band across the sky.
๐คฉ Did you know?
- The Milky Way is about 100 thousand light-years across.
- At its central bulge, the galaxy is about 10 thousand light-years thick.
- Our solar system is about 25 thousand light-years from the center of the galaxy.
- Our galaxy has hundreds of billions of stars.
๐ Find out more
๐ Why that name?
The galaxy's band in the sky looks like a path of scattered straw or spilled milk, so the Arabs called it โthe straw pathโ, and others called it โthe milky wayโ.
๐ A spiral galaxy
If we looked at our galaxy from above, we'd see a big whirlpool with curling arms, a bright bulge full of stars in the middle, and a giant black hole at its heart.
๐ก Where are we?
Our Sun isn't in the middle of the galaxy but in one of its arms, far from the center. The Sun goes around the center with all the galaxy's stars, on a journey that takes more than 200 million years!
๐ฏ Why can't we see it in cities?
City lights make the sky bright and hide faint stars. So we only see the Milky Way in the desert or countryside, far from the lights.
๐ธ More pictures
๐งฉ Test yourself
1 Where is our Sun in the galaxy?
2 Where can we see the Milky Way clearly?
3 The Milky Way is about ?? thousand light-years across.
4 Which picture shows โThe Milky Wayโ?
๐ช Discover more
๐ท Picture sources: Wikimedia Commons
- ESO/Y. Beletsky ยท CC BY 4.0
- Steve Jurvetson ยท CC BY 2.0
