WHAT IS THE MILKY WAY?

THE MILKY WAY

The Milky Way is the name of the galaxy in which our earth, with all the other members of the solar (sun's) family, is located. In other words, our galaxy is enormous in size. Its diameter is about 100,000 light years. A light-year is a distance that light travels in a period of one year. It is equal to 946 trillion kilometers.

The Milky Way is made up of about 100,000 million stars and huge clouds of gas as well as dust. Each of these clouds along with the stars in it is called a nebula. Because of the dust and the gas, the light of the stars appears to be faint.

The name Milky Way refers to the portion of the galaxy that can, be seen as a broad milky band of starlight across the sky on clear starry nights. This name was given by ancient Greeks who believed that it was formed by the drops of milk that dripped from the breasts of goddess Hera--wife of Zeus, chief of the gods. We, in India, call it Aakash Ganga while the Arabians call it Kahkashaan.

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy shaped like a disc. It has a bulge in the center from which fan out long curved arms to form its spiral. The inner bulge contains most of the older stars while the younger ones Iie in the outer flat part of the galaxy. These young stars, along with the gas and the dust present there, form the halo around the central bulge.

SHAPE OF THE MILKY WAY

The Milky Way is shaped liked a flat spiral of stars. Some parts of this galaxy are so thick with stars that they have taken a cloudy appearance.

The Milky Way consists of several spiral arms that contain millions of nebulae.

All the stars and the star-clusters in the Milky Way revolve round its center just as our earth and other planets revolve about the sun. Our sun is about 30,000 light-years away from the center of the Milky Way and thus lies in its outer part.