MILKY WAY

Our galaxy containing the solar system, billions of stars and other planets.  It can be seen as a broad band of faint light in the night sky.

  

1.      Formed approximately 14 billion years ago

2.      a spiral galaxy with large concentration of stars in its nucleus

3.      Stars, dust, and gas fan out from the thick center of the Galaxy in long spiraling arms

4.      approximately 100,000 light years in diameter

5.      Our solar system is located on one of these spiral arms, about 26,000 light years from the center of the Galaxy

6.      All objects in the Galaxy revolve around the Galaxy's center

7.      It takes 250 million years for our Sun to pull us through one revolution around the center of the Milky Way

8.      Through a telescope the Milky Way galaxy has been found to be made up of countless individual stars that seem relatively close together. This is because from the vantage point of Earth we are looking at the Milky Way on its edge and can't see where the stars are actually located.

9.      The Milky Way is part of a galaxy cluster that includes 30 other galaxies, the closest of which is the Andromeda  Nebula.

10. Scientists have calculated that are about 400 billion stars in our galaxy

 

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