The Milky Way Galaxy is an immense and very interesting place. It takes 250 million years for our Sun to pull us through one revolution around the center of the Milky Way. When you look up at stars in the night sky, you’re seeing other stars in the Milky Way. Researchers fine-tune maps of our galaxy's spiral arms using data from NASA's WISE mission. But with advanced technology, we have a better understanding of what lies in the deepest parts of space. It’s hard to image how big the universe actually is. The Milky Way is very big and takes about 200 million years to make one complete rotation while it only takes Earth roughly 365 days to make a rotation. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, also has a supermassive black hole in the middle. The band of light that you see isn’t actually milk, of course—it’s a galaxy. ” The band of light that you see isn’t actually milk, of course—it’s a galaxy. When we think of where we are in the entire universe, our planet is just one a small speck. Arcing overhead, a faint band of light may appear that looks like milk spilled across the sky. The towers of fiery colors are actually dust in the galaxy and beyond that has been polarized. Shares. Not only does it measure some 120,000–180,000 light-years in diameter, it is home to planet Earth, the birthplace of humanity. A galaxy is held together by gravity. And it’s all held together by gravity. Using infrared images from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, scientists have discovered that the Milky Way's elegant spiral structure is dominated by just two arms wrapping off the ends of a central bar of stars.

All objects in the Galaxy revolve around the Galaxy's center. Our Milky Way galaxy is ablaze with dust in this new all-sky map from Planck, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions.
If you’re on a dark countryside hill some night, look up at the sky. This galaxy is a spiral or whirl shape and home to our planet and Sun.

Though our Sun is young, the Milky Way is about as old as the Universe itself.

NASA images of the center of our galaxy taken with the GISMO instrument, show it looks like a "cosmic candy cane." Get to know your galaxy. Through his spyglass, in 1609 Galileo saw that there were spots on the Sun, imperfections on the Moon, and that the Milky Way was composed of millions of faint stars. Like early explorers mapping the continents of our globe, astronomers are busy charting the spiral structure of our galaxy, the Milky Way. When it comes to the Milky Way, those estimations show that it is around 13.6 billion years old. After its launch, Webb will gather infrared light that has penetrated the dusty veil, revealing the galactic center in unprecedented detail. The ancient Romans called the band via lacteal, which means “milky road” or “milky way. The Milky Way contains over 200 billion stars, and enough dust and gas to make billions more. Our solar system is 26,000 light-years from the center of the Galaxy. A galaxy is a huge bunch of stars clustered together in space. Milky Way facts. The Milky Way is approximately 100,000 light-years in diameter. The Milky Way itself is rotating in a clockwise direction. 11 Fascinating Facts About Our Milky Way Galaxy. discovery was of satellites orbiting Jupiter, dashing the concept that the Earth was the center of the Universe. The towers of fiery colors are actually dust in the galaxy and beyond that has been polarized. The Milky Way is one of many galaxies that lie in the universe. Our Milky Way galaxy is ablaze with dust in this new all-sky map from Planck, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions. Even our solar system is one of many in the Milky Way Galaxy, and our own galaxy is one of billions in the universe. If it’s really dark, far away from lights from cities and houses, you can even see the dusty bands of the Milky Way stretch across the sky. Earth is actually situated in one of the extensions of the Milky Way, away from its center. His most stunning (and controversial!) Our solar system—which includes the sun, Earth, and seven other planets—is part of this galaxy, called … you guessed it … the Milky Way. Like more than two-thirds of the known galaxies, the Milky Way has a spiral shape. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is typical: it has hundreds of billions of stars, enough gas and dust to make billions more stars, and about six times as much dark matter as all the stars and gas put together. By Adam Mann 16 October 2018. Milky Way Galaxy. Page 1 of 2: Page 1 Page 1 Page 2 Our Milky Way Galaxy (Image credit: ESA/NASA… Some estimates put the age of the Universe at around 13.7 billion years old.