Astronomy: The Milky Way

ASTRONOMY

THE MILKY WAY

BY: ARIETTE LOPEZ AND LUCY STICKNEY 4-1-15 Per:R2

Click here to see the scale of the universe!

The Doomed StarLargest star in the Milky Way Galaxy

Gliese 623b

Europa

The Milky Way is shaped like a huge whirlpool that rotates once every 200 million years. It is made up of at least 100 billion stars, as well as dust and gas. It is so big that light takes 100 000 years to cross from one side to the other. Outside the main spiral are about 200 ball-shaped clusters of stars. Each 'globular cluster' is very old and contains up to one million stars. The Milky Way belongs to a cluster of at least 40 galaxies. The so-called Local Group has two large spiral galaxies – the Milky Way and Andromeda. The others are much smaller. They include two galaxies that can be seen with the naked eye from countries south of the equator. The galaxies are called the Magellanic Clouds, after the Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan.