The meaning of the milky way

The Milky Way is a part of the Milky Way.

The Milky Way is a rod-shaped galaxy where the solar system is located, including 65,438+0,000-400 billion stars, a large number of star clusters, nebulae and various types of interstellar gas and dust. Seen from the earth, the Milky Way is a silvery white ring around the sky.

The total mass of the Milky Way is about10.5 trillion times that of the sun, which belongs to the local galaxy group. The nearest extragalactic galaxy is the dog dwarf galaxy, which is 42,000 light years away from the Milky Way.

The Milky Way is a oblate sphere with a huge disk structure, consisting of a bright and dense core, two main spiral arms and two unformed spiral arms, which are 4,500 light years apart.

The sun is located on the arm of Orion, an arm of the Milky Way, and the distance to the galactic center is about 26,000 light years.

Extended data:

The mass of the entire galaxy:

Scientists at Columbia University have accurately calculated the mass of the Milky Way. The latest results show that the mass of the Milky Way is about 210 billion times that of the sun, including clusters of thousands of stars on the edge of the Milky Way.

Scientists have obtained the mass distribution map of the Milky Way after running the supercomputer, and the calculated mass of the Milky Way is the most accurate. This research result helps us to study the structure of the Milky Way, such as the span of the Milky Way.

Previously, our estimation of the mass of the Milky Way galaxy came from the observation of the speed of stars, and the error was huge.

Reference source: Baidu Encyclopedia-Galaxy