Milky Way Galaxy | |
Picture of the Milky Way Galaxy in space | |
Location: | Space |
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Diameter: | 100–180 thousand ly (31–55 kpc) |
Thickness of thin stellar disk | ≈2 thousand ly |
Number of stars | 100–400 Billion (2.5×1011 ±1.5×1011) |
The Milky Way Galaxy is a fairly ordinary spiral Galaxy, astronomers call it a barred spiral. [1]
It's a giant galaxy, bigger than most galaxies in its neighbourhood but not as large as the Great Andromeda Galaxy, M 31. [2] The Milky Way Galaxy is incredibly old and formed not more than about 1 Billion years after the Big Bang and at its centre is an enormous black hole. We don't know if extraterrestrial life or Intelligent aliens are in the Milky Way.
Can you see the Milky Way Galaxy? Yes you can, just look around you. The Milky Way Galaxy is our galaxy, the Earth and the Solar System are part of it. The Milky Way Galaxy [3][4]