Milky Way Galaxy in photos (43 photos)

Our galaxy - the star system, which is immersed solar system is called the Milky Way. Milky Way - a big cluster of stars visible in the sky as bright hazy band. In ancient Greek word "glaktikos" means "milk", "milky", so the Milky Way and similar to a star system called galaxies.



Scientists believe that our galaxy contains over 200 billion stars. The number of commands respect: 200000000000



The disk of our galaxy is relatively thin, only a few thousand light-years



The diameter of the galaxy "Milky Way" about 100,000 light-years



Our sun is located 28,000 light years from the center



Since galaxies rotate like the planets around the sun, our sun makes a complete orbit around the center of the galaxy in about 270 million years



Since we are in a galaxy, and look at it from the inside, the disk can be seen on the celestial sphere as a band of stars, this is the Milky Way.