What is the Milky Way?
The Milky Way is a cluster of stars bound together by gravity in the shape of a spiral. This type of stars arrangement is known as a galaxy. Many people are familiar with the Milky Way concept because they host our own solar system on one of its spiral weapons. During particularly clear conditions, the Milky Way is visible as a weak group of light in the sky. The stars in this group of light stretch over hundreds of thousands of light years to form together our galaxy, which is only one of the billions in space. It is probably a reference to the look of the galaxy in the night sky, because it looks more like a large puddle of spilled milk. The fact that the Milky Way was a connected system of stars was determined as early as the age of 20. Century, when observers realized that white blur in the sky was actually composed of millions of stars.
Astronomers who have studied the origin of the Milky Way determined that it was almost as old as the universe. The galaxy has six spiral weapons that emerge fromClear center, marked bars of stars. The combination of spiral and bar led to the classification of the Milky Way as a concealed spiral galaxy. It is estimated that the Milky Way holds between 200 and 400 billion stars.
Looking at her side, the Milky Way has a large central bulge surrounded by a disk of stars and dust. Looking from above you can clearly see the arrangement of the spirals around the central bar. Our solar system is located on Orion Arm, one of the shorter weapons in the Milky Way. The whole galaxy is surrounded by halo small stellar clusters and dust, which would make the Milky track look murky to external observers.
The whole galaxy slowly rotates around the central bar. Due to the size of the galaxy, Thje rotation is so gradual that it will not notice occasional observers. Completion of the galaxy orbit lasts the sun between 200 and 230 million years. Another closest galaxy is Andromeda Galaxy, another spiral galaxy whoRa is sometimes referred to as the "sister of the galaxy" of the Milky Way. Both galaxies are located in the Virgin SuperCluster, a large group of galaxies that include a "local group", a range of galaxies that include the Milky Way.