Euclid space telescope unveils new images of the cosmos

A mind-boggling number of shining galaxies, a purple and orange star nursery and a spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way: new images were revealed from Europe's Euclid space telescope on Thursday.

Webb detects most distant black hole merger to date

An international team of astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to find evidence for an ongoing merger of two galaxies and their massive black holes when the universe was only 740 million years ...

Does the Milky Way have too many satellite galaxies?

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are well-known satellite galaxies of the Milky Way, but there are more. It is surrounded by at least 61 within 1.4 million light years (for context the Andromeda galaxy is 2.5 million ...

NASA images help explain eating habits of massive black hole

In images from NASA's retired Spitzer Space Telescope, streams of dust thousands of light-years long flow toward the supermassive black hole at the heart of the Andromeda galaxy. It turns out these streams can help explain ...

Hubble spots magnificent barred galaxy NGC 2217

The magnificent central bar of NGC 2217 (also known as AM 0619-271) shines bright in the constellation of Canis Major (The Greater Dog), in this image taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. Roughly 65 million light-years ...

page 1 from 40

Milky Way

The Milky Way, or simply the Galaxy, is the galaxy in which the Solar System is located. It is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies. It is one of billions of galaxies in the observable universe.

Its name is a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn translated from the Greek Γαλαξίας (Galaxias), referring to the pale band of light formed by the galactic plane as seen from Earth (see etymology of galaxy). Some sources hold that, strictly speaking, the term Milky Way should refer exclusively to the band of light that the galaxy forms in the night sky, while the galaxy should receive the full name Milky Way Galaxy, or alternatively the Galaxy. However, it is unclear how widespread this convention is, and the term Milky Way is routinely used in either context.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA