large spiral system consisting of several billion stars, one of which is the Sun. It takes its name from the Milky Way, the irregular luminous band of stars and gas clouds that stretches across the sky as seen from Earth. Although Earth lies well...

The Milky Way Galaxy is the home galaxy of our solar system. It is a large spiral galaxy containing an aggregation of gas, dust, an estimated 400 billion stars, and thousands of globular clusters and nebulae. The Galaxy's mass is probably between 750...

If you go out into the countryside on a clear summer night, far from city lights and look up, you will see a band of light arching across the vault of the sky. In Ancient Greek and Roman legend, this was a milky river that flowed across the sky. They...

Large spiral galaxy (roughly 150,000 light-years in diameter) that contains Earth's solar system. It includes the multitude of stars whose light is seen as the Milky Way, the irregular luminous band that encircles the sky defining the plane of the...

The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn derived from the Greek Γαλαξίας (Galaxias) sometimes referred to simply as "the Galaxy"), is a barred spiral galaxy that is part of the Local Group of galaxies. Although the Milky Way...