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Figure 1.The observed structure of the Milky Way's spiral arms [1]. The Orion Arm, also known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm, is a minor spiral arm within the Milky Way Galaxy spanning 3,500 light-years (1,100 parsecs) in width and extending roughly 20,000 light-years (6,100 parsecs) in length. [2]
The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with two major arms and a number of minor arms or spurs. [1] The Perseus Spiral Arm, with a radius of approximately 10.7 kiloparsecs, is located between the minor Cygnus and Carina–Sagittarius Arms. [1] It is named after the Perseus constellation in the direction of which it is seen from Earth.
center – the study of the central region of the Milky Way; disk – the study of the Milky Way disk (the plane upon which most galactic objects are aligned) evolution – the evolution of the Milky Way; formation – the formation of the Milky Way; fundamental parameters – the fundamental parameters of the Milky Way (mass, size etc.)
The Milky Way was once considered an ordinary spiral galaxy. Astronomers first began to suspect that the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy in the 1960s. [38] [39] Their suspicions were confirmed by Spitzer Space Telescope observations in 2005, [40] which showed that the Milky Way's central bar is larger than what was previously suspected.
Astronomers using the Gaia space telescope have located two ancient streams of stars that helped the Milky Way galaxy grow and evolve more than 12 billion years ago.
At first, it looks like a planet: dark, snow-speckled and slashed down the center by a deep red scar. But zoom in a little closer, and you realize you're looking at something much larger than a ...
While Earth is located about 26,000 light-years from what's known as the galactic center, the outer portions of the Milky Way are even further, at about 58,000 light-years from our galaxy's ...