Here Are 10 Interesting Facts About The Milky Way, Hop In

The Milky Way has existed since before The Earth’s existence. Our ancients described it as a river, as milk, and as a path, but it actually is a line of light and the center of our galaxy. The Milky was is a barred spiral galaxy, about 100,000 light-years across.

It is really an amazing thing, so there is no way that you aren’t interested in knowing more about the intriguing Milky Way. Here are 13 facts that will inform you about everything you nee to know.

1.The Romans called our galaxy the Milky Road because it reminded them of milk. The Greeks called it the Milky Circle. In fact, the word “galaxy” is the Greek word for milk.

2. The ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, who lived from about 460 to 370 B.C., was the first known person to suggest that the Milky Way is made of stars. Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) was the first to identify and resolve the band of light as many individual stars with his telescope in 1610.

3. When someone sees the Milky Way at night, they are only seeing about 0.0000025% of the galaxy’s total amount of stars.

4. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy that has curved arms that spin out from its center. Astronomers discovered it was barred (meaning the center is bar-shaped) rather than an ordinary spiral galaxy (meaning the center is a spherical bulge) in the 1990s. It is 100,000–120,000 light-years in diameter.

5. The Milky Way is a galaxy that is formed by a large group of stars, dust, and gas held together by their mutual gravitational pull.

6. The very center of the Milky Way contains a powerful gravitational force that scientists believe is a black hole, which they have named Sagittarius A*. Astronomers believe this black hole weighs as much as 4 million of our suns put together.

7. The oldest star in the Milky Way is probably 13.6 billion years old and was formed right after the Big Bang.

8. Earth’s closest star in the Milky Way, Proxima Centauri, is more than four light-years away (a light-year is about 5.9 trillion miles, about 10 trillion kilometers). Proxima is Latin for “close.”

9. Many scientists believe that the Milky Way is formed by 400 billion stars and at least the same amount of planets.The largest galaxy known, IC 1101, has over 100 trillion stars. Smaller galaxies, like the Large Magellanic Cloud, have about 10 billion stars. The most stars a person can see from any point on Earth are about 2,500.

10. Astronomers believe that around 7 stars are born every year in the Milky Way. They are formed inside huge clouds of dust and gas.

11. If the Milky Way had the same diameter as a Frisbee, the thickness of the disk would be about that of a sheet of paper

12. In the 1920s, astronomer Edwin Hubble created a new way to measure the distance between other galaxies based on how bright a star is. He was able to prove that there were other galaxies outside the Milky Way and that the universe is millions of times bigger than our galaxy.

13. The Milky Way galaxy is 100,000 light-years from edge to edge. If a rocket could travel at the speed of light, it would take 100,000 years to cross the galaxy. By comparison, light can go from Earth to the moon in just one second.