"Exploring the Cosmic Tapestry: A Journey through the Milky Way Galaxy"

 

The Milky Way Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy that contains our Solar System. It is home to billions of stars, including our sun, and various celestial objects. The galaxy gets its name from its appearance as a milky band of light across the night sky.

Individual Facts of Milkyway Galaxy.

1. Size:

The Milky Way is about 100,000 light-years in diameter.

2. Stars:

It contains an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars.

3. Structure:

It has a barred spiral structure with four main arms, including the Orion Arm where our solar system is located.

4. Galactic Center:

The center of the Milky Way hosts a supermassive black hole named Sagittarius A*.

5. Dark Matter:

 About 90% of the Milky Way's mass comes from dark matter, a mysterious substance that doesn't emit, absorb, or reflect light.

6. Age:

The Milky Way is roughly 13.6 billion years old, nearly as old as the universe itself.

7. Galactic Collision:

It is on a collision course with the Andromeda Galaxy, and the two are expected to merge in about 4 billion years.

8. Visible Light:

The milky band we see in the night sky is the combined light of countless stars and is more prominent in areas with less light pollution.

9. Galactic Halo:

Surrounding the disk of the Milky Way is a vast halo of hot gas, stars, and dark matter.

10. Galactic Cannibalism:

The Milky Way has cannibalized smaller satellite galaxies over its long history, incorporating their stars into its structure.

How MilkyWay Galaxy was discovered? 

The Milky Way Galaxy has been observed and known since ancient times. However, understanding its true nature as a vast collection of stars, along with the concept of galaxies, took centuries to develop. The realization that the Milky Way is just one among many galaxies in the universe came in the early 20th century.

In the 17th century, Galileo Galilei and others used early telescopes to observe the band of light in the night sky, realizing it was composed of countless individual stars. In the 18th and 19th centuries, astronomers like William Herschel made significant contributions to mapping the Milky Way's structure.

The concept of "island universes" beyond the Milky Way emerged in the early 20th century. Edwin Hubble's observations in the 1920s, particularly his discovery of other galaxies and the expansion of the universe, played a crucial role in understanding the vastness of the cosmos and our place within it.