hamish

Milky Way

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__Milky Way appereance from the earth__ All the stars the naked eye can see in the night sky are all part of the Milky Way but apart from stars close by, all the Milky Way looks like is a hazy white band covering the celestial sphere. The light around the sphere comes from the stars. Dark regions in the band come from the Great Rift and Coalsack. The centre of the galaxy lies towards Sagatarrius and this is where the Milky Way looks brightest. The Milky Way contains the solar system and around 200-400 billion stars.
 * __Size and Age__ ****The approximate size of the stellar disk of the Milky Way is around 100,000 lightyears in diameter and around 1,000 lightyears thick. The Milky Way is believed to have around 200 billion stars but may even have 400 billion stars. Beyond the stellar disk of the Milky Way is a mush bigger disk made of gas. Recent observations have shown that the disk has a thickness of around 12,000 lightyears around two times the previous thought of the gas disk. In 2007 a star in the Milky Way was estimated to be about 13.2 billion years old and the oldest thing in the Milky Way. This estimation placed a lower age on the Milky Way.**

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**__Spiral Arms__ Each of the Milky Ways spiral arms, described as a logarithmic spiral, with a pitch of approxamitly 12 degrees. Until recently there was thought to be four major spiral arms which start close to the centre of the galaxy. Here is a diagram and picture of the milky way. This is what the colours stand for: Cyan- 3-kpc and Pereseus arm, Purple-Norma and Outer arm(including a newly discovered extension), Green-Scutum-Crux arm, Pink-Carina and Sagittarius arm, Orange-Orion-Cygnus arm(which includes the sun and solar system).
 * ​**__**Structure and Composition**__ **The Milky Way galaxy consists of a bar-shaped core region surrounded by a disk of gas, dust and stars forming four distinct arm structures spiralling outwards on a logarithmic spiral. Recent estimates for the Milky Way's mass vary, but some show that the Milky Way is at the low end of the scale, with scientists saying that it would weigh about 5.8 x 5.8 × 1011 solar masses (M☉), somewhat smaller than the Androma galaxy.** [[image:800px-Milky_way_2_md.jpg width="467" height="291" align="left"]][[image:MilkyWayFalling[1].jpg width="490" height="283"]]

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**__Discovery__ For centuries people thought the Milky Way consisted of many distant stars, but it wasn't until 1610 that the first real information was found. This information was found by Galileo Galilei who found the information using a telescope. The Milky Ways name comes from the latin word Via Lactea which is tranlslated from the Greek word Γαλαξίας which stands for the pale band of light formed by the stars you see in the galactic plane.

Here are some more pictures of the Milky Way. **



**Thank you for reading my wiki on the Milky Way galaxy. I hope you enjoyed it.**

Bibliography: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way I got the pictures by typing Milky Way into google images.