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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.
Its speed around the center of the Milky Way is about 220 km/s, so that it completes one revolution every 240 million years. This revolution is known as the Solar System's galactic year . [262] The solar apex , the direction of the Sun's path through interstellar space, is near the constellation Hercules in the direction of the current location ...
Orion Arm. 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 10,000 light-years (3,100 parsecs) in length. [2] This galactic structure encompasses the Solar System, including Earth.
To the Māori the Milky Way is the waka (canoe) of Tama-rereti. The front and back of the canoe are Orion and Scorpius, while the Southern Cross and the Pointers are the anchor and rope. According to legend, when Tama-rereti took his canoe out onto a lake, he found himself far from home as night was falling.
The Milky Way started out small and grew in size as it merged with other galaxies, gaining stars as well as hydrogen to form more stars. Each galaxy has hydrogen gas that aids in the birth of stars.
Edwin Hubble was born to Virginia Lee Hubble (née James) (1864–1934) [14] and John Powell Hubble, an insurance executive, in Marshfield, Missouri, and moved to Wheaton, Illinois, in 1900. [15] In his younger days, he was noted more for his athletic prowess than his intellectual abilities, although he did earn good grades in every subject ...
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (163,000 light-years), the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal (c. 16 kiloparsecs (52,000 light-years) away) and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy called the Canis Major Overdensity.
The Origin of the Milky Way is a painting by the Italian late Renaissance master Jacopo Tintoretto, in the National Gallery, London, formerly in the Orleans Collection. It is an oil painting on canvas, and dates from ca.1575–1580. According to myth, the infant Heracles was brought to Hera by his half-sister Athena, who later played an ...
Galactic year. The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. [1] One galactic year is approximately 225 million Earth years. [2] The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 230 km/s (828,000 km/h) or 143 mi/s (514,000 mph) within its ...
Our own Milky Way is generally classed as Sc or SBc, making it a barred spiral with well-defined arms. Examples of regular spiral galaxies: M31 (Andromeda Galaxy), M74, M81, M104 (Sombrero Galaxy), M51a (Whirlpool Galaxy), NGC 300, NGC 772. Examples of barred spiral galaxies: M91, M95, NGC 1097, NGC 1300, NGC1672, NGC 2536, NGC 2903.