Imagine that you were inside a large office building. Quick, what does it look like from the outside? That's basically why. While nearly all the individual stars we can see are in the Milky Way galaxy, we can only see a small fraction of them and being inside it, with dust clouds getting in the way (we can't even see, visually, the center of the galaxy, because of all the dust), it's kind of hard to tell what the overall shape is.
Now, to put things into perspective: when we say that we're "not certain" of the shape, what we really mean is fine detail. Just as if you were in the central courtyard of the Pentagon, you could be pretty sure that the building is pentagonal, the chances of the Milky Way NOT being a spiral galaxy are so close to zero as to be indistinguishable from it in any practical sense, and we're pretty sure it's a barred spiral. Exactly how many arms and how many times they wrap around ... that we can't really tell, but the gross structure is pretty nearly a dead lock.
The Sun is about 27,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way, roughly 2/3rds the way out from the center to the edge of the galactic disk.
Radio waves pass most easily through the disk of the Milky Way due to their long wavelengths, which are able to penetrate the thick dust and gas clouds that block other forms of radiation like ultraviolet and X-rays. This is why radio telescopes are commonly used to study the Milky Way's structure and composition.
The diameter of the Milky Way galaxy is about 100,000 light-years. If the Sun and Earth were at the edge of the disk, we would still be within the galaxy's boundaries, so the diameter would remain around 100,000 light-years.
The Milky Way is both disk-like and spiral in shape. It is a barred spiral galaxy, meaning it has a flat, rotating disk with spiral arms emanating from a central bar. This shape is common among spiral galaxies due to the rotation of stars and gas in the galaxy.
It would appear as a cloud of stars, just like the Milky Way.
what is the thin gas and clusters of stars surrounds the disk of the Milky Way Galaxy.
Our solar system is located in the thin disk of the Milky Way.
The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years across.
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The stars throughout the disk.
The stellar disk of the Milky Way galaxy is approximately 100,000 light years in diameter and about 10,000 light years in thickness.
The ones in the bulge or halo are older star, the ones in the disk are younger.
It looks more like a gigantic disk, with a bulge in the middle.
The Sun is about 27,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way, roughly 2/3rds the way out from the center to the edge of the galactic disk.
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, so it slightly resembles a spiraled disk. Nevertheless, it is impossible to assign an exact shape to a dynamic celestial object.
The Milky Way is a disk of stars with the sun near the center.
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