<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

The Milky Way is the common name for the galaxy that is home to our solar system. It is a spiral galaxy with 200 to 400 billion stars. The Milky Way galaxy has a circumference of roughly 250-300 thousand light years, and is about 100,000 light years across and 12,000 light years thick. At the center of the milky way is a super massive Black Hole.

The term Milky Way comes from a band of white light that can be seen across the vastness of space and is visible from Earth. This vastness contains a host of various stars and other solar matter. The discovery of the Milky Way is credited to the ancient Greek philosopher Democritus, who was the first person in recorded history to make the assumption that the Milky Way existed and was made up of billions of distant stars.

External Links

• University of Sydney - The Milky Way is twice the size we thought it was