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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.
Layout of some Great Rift "constellations" as represented by the Inca. Dark zones obscuring the night-sky lighting mass of the bulk of the Milky Way in a dry atmosphere (or at long exposures) were recognized by many ancient civilizations in which a seasonally or regularly dry climate is a frequent feature.
The Large Sagittarius Star Cloud is the brightest visible region of the Milky Way galaxy, a portion of the central bulge seen around the thick dust of the Great Rift which lines the northwest edge. It should not be confused with the nearby Small Sagittarius Star Cloud , which lies about 10° to the north. [ 1 ]
The Milky Way Galaxy.. The Monoceros Ring (from Greek monoceros 'unicorn') is a long, complex ring of stars that wraps around the Milky Way three times. This is proposed to consist of a stellar stream torn from the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy by tidal forces as part of the process of merging with the Milky Way over a period of billions of years, although this view has long been disputed. [1]
The Milky Way Galaxy [4] is only one of the billions of galaxies in the known universe. Galaxies are classified into spirals, [5] ellipticals, irregular, and peculiar. Sizes can range from only a few thousand stars (dwarf irregulars) to 10 13 stars in giant ellipticals. Elliptical galaxies are spherical or elliptical in appearance.
Star system Nebula Median distance () Stars in system Spectral type Apparent magnitude (V) Comments and references P Cygni (34 Cygni) : 5251±180: 1: B1-2 Ia-0ep: 4.82: The closest luminous blue variable star to Earth
Artist's impression of the central bulge of the Milky Way [1] In astronomy , a galactic bulge (or simply bulge ) is a tightly packed group of stars within a larger star formation . The term almost exclusively refers to the central group of stars found in most spiral galaxies (see galactic spheroid ).
[18] [19] This is about ten times the rate observed in our Milky Way galaxy, [20] even though the Milky Way has twice as many stars as NGC 6946. On 27 September 2004, the Type II supernova SN 2004et was observed at magnitude 15.2 and rose to a maximum visual magnitude of 12.7.