What is significant about the Milky Way galaxy?

Answer 1

For several decades, astronomers believed that the Milky Way galaxy was a spiral galaxy similar to M31 in Andromeda. But recent observations indicate that the Milky Way may actually be a "barred spiral" galaxy.

In either event, the Sun and our solar system are about 2/3 of the way out on one of the spiral arms, a very long way from the center of the Milky Way. Which is probably just as well, as recent research indicates that many galaxies including ours may have supermassive black holes at the center. So anywhere near the center of the galaxy would probably be a very nasty place to be!

Answer 2

Our solar system is about 2/3 of the way out from the center of the Milky Way, along one of the spiral "arms" of the Milky Way. We're nowhere close to the center, which is probably fortunate - since the center of the Milky Way galaxy is occupied by a super-massive black hole!

Because the universe is expanding in all directions, there isn't way way to calculate where the Milky Way is in relation to the rest of the universe. Establishing our position in the universe will be comparable to the position of sailors and navigators in setting up coordinates on the Earth. Since the foremost sailors were English, they established the "Prime Meridian" of navigation as passing through the Naval Observatory at Greenwich, England, near London. So for the last 400 years, we've been navigating with reference to London as the center. We'll probably establish a similar set of galactic coordinates with Earth as a galactic "Prime Meridian".

Answer 3

Studying galaxies is one part of Astronomy. The Milky Way is the galaxy in which Earth, and all the stars that you can see in the night sky belong. Although all of the stars we can see are in the Milky Way, in certain parts of sky the Milky Way is more evident, by a long cloudy or dusty formation that goes through the night skies. In dark areas, away from city lights and town lights, it can be possible to see this. By studying our own galaxy it can help us understand other galaxies, which we can see.

Answer 4

The Sun and our Solar System is about 25,000 light years from the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. The visible part of our Milky Way is most likely about 100,000 light years across. The Sun is in the Orion Spur of the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way.

Answer 5

Since the universe extends as far as our most powerful telescope (the Hubble Space Telescope) can see in every direction, there is really no way to determine the Milky Way galaxy's place in the universe. It's a big universe.

Answer 6

Our solar system is located in the outer reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is a spiral galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy contains roughly 200 billion stars. Most of these stars are not visible from Earth. Almost everything that we can see in the sky belongs to the Milky Way Galaxy.

The sun is about 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is about 80,000 to 120,000 light-years across (and less than 7,000 light-years thick). We are located on on one of its spiral arms, out towards the edge. It takes the sun (and our solar system) roughly 200-250 million years to orbit once around the Milky Way. In this orbit, we (and the rest of the Solar System) are traveling at a velocity of about 155 miles/sec (250 km/sec).

To reach the center of the Milky Way Galaxy starting from the Earth, aim toward the constellation Sagittarius. If you were in a spacecraft, during the trip you would pass the stars in Sagittarius one by one (and many other stars!).

Since we're inside the Milky Way Galaxy and we've never sent a spacecraft outside our Galaxy, we have no photographs of the Milky Way Galaxy. Radio telescope data does, however, let us know a lot about it.

The arms of the Milky Way are named for the constellations that are seen in those directions. The major arms of the Milky Way galaxy are the Perseus Arm, Sagittarius Arm, Centaurus Arm, and Cygnus Arm; our Solar System is in a minor arm called the Orion Spur. The central hub (or central bulge) contains old stars and at least one black hole; younger stars are in the arms, along with dust and gas that form new stars.

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Another contributor added a condensed version:

The Milky Way galaxy is a collection of stars. Estimates of the number of members range up to

400 billion. The sun, and the collection of tiny rocks and gasballs gravitationally attached to it

that we call the 'Solar System', is one of the 400 billion. The next nearest star in the Milky Way

is about 26,866,280,000,000 miles away ... a distance that takes over 4 years for a beam of

light to cross.

And there are billions of other galaxies outside of the Milky Way galaxy.

Answer 7

the sun is the smallest by far.... the milky way IS our solar system.....many solar systems make up a galaxy and there are many many galaxies in a universe... now they claim to have found even more UNIVERSES..... wow.... we are but grains of sand.... how cool is that eh???

Answer 8

It really isn't. There are many galaxies like it and many that are not. Our closest major galaxy, Andromeda (M31) is much like Milky way, but bigger. On the other hand, two of our closest companion galaxies (Magellanic clouds) are very irregular in shape compared to Milky way galaxy.

Answer 9

The "Milky Way" is one of billions of galaxies in the universe.

Answer 10

Mainly that it is OUR galaxy - the galaxy we live in.