Our Galaxy consists of 200 billion stars with their planets, forming a giant flattened disk with outgoing spiral branches and bulge(swelling) in the center.
3D model of the Milky Way
If viewed from Earth along the plane of this disk, the Galaxy appears as encircling the sky silvery ribbon of stars and glowing gases - this is the Milky Way. Our entire Galaxy is called the Milky Way Galaxy.
Name Milky Way widespread in Western culture and is a tracing paper from Lat. via lactea “milk road”, which, in turn, is a translation from ancient Greek. ϰύϰλος γαλαξίας " milk circle».
According to ancient Greek legend, Zeus decided to make his son Hercules, born from a mortal woman, immortal, and for this he planted it on his sleeping wife Hera so that Hercules would drink divine milk. Hera, waking up, saw that she was not feeding her child, and pushed him away from her. The stream of milk that splashed from the goddess’s breast turned into the Milky Way.
The galaxy consists of one large flat disk-shaped body. The diameter of the disk exceeds 100 thousand light years, and the thickness is several thousand, i.e. relatively thin. In terms of its morphology, the disk is non-compact, has complex structures; inside it there are uneven structures that extend from the core - the bulge - to the periphery. These are the so-called “spiral arms” of our Galaxy. Arms are high-density zones where “new stars form from clouds of interstellar dust and gases.”
The Milky Way Galaxy rotates around its center. Its diameter is 100,000 light years. The bulge is approximately 10,000 light-years across and about 20,000 light-years thick. This region of the Galaxy contains only old stars. The thickness of the disk formed by the spiral arms is from a thousand to 3000 light years.
It takes about 225 million years for the sun to complete a revolution.
The Sun is located 28,000 light years from the center of the Galaxy, in the Orion Arm.
At the center of our Galaxy is Alpha Sagittarius, a powerful source of radio emission that may well turn out to be a black hole.
A galaxy with spiral arms and a bar rotates. It is believed that the force field of the Galaxy Center holds the galaxy arms in their orbits. 
Milky Way Galaxy Map with functional curves applied to it, approximating the shape of the sleeves.
Interesting hypothesis that There were two black holes at the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
, which almost simultaneously “shot” their jets, which became the basis for future arms of the galaxy.
If we force such a rotation curve to be projected, the Milky Way galaxy in a retrospective analysis, that is, when rotating it in the opposite direction in time, will appear with straightened arms. Or at least partially straightened. The sleeves curl to varying degrees, so in retrospect they don't necessarily straighten out all together.
To design the required rotation curve, one of the arms was selected that was most likely to have been straight in the past. To do this, each point of this arm was reversed at such a speed that after several billion years all the points, having traveled a different path, lined up in a straight line. The straightening time can be set to any time during which the sleeves are supposed to exist. The principle here is the same, the time taken is not very long, since a long time will require many revolutions of the galaxy and, accordingly, the duration of the animation. For example, for an age of 12 billion years, about 12/0.3 = 40 revolutions of the external structure will be required. Therefore, for simplicity, we took 2-3 billion years. Calculations and all animations can be viewed...
The result is an image of the galaxy as it would have looked 3,000 million years ago if it had rotated along this rotation curve. The Cygnus Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy could be straight. 
And here we discover an unexpected picture. It can be seen that in addition to the Cygnus Arm, the Centauri Arm has also almost straightened out. Moreover, the entire appearance of the galaxy resembles a cross of two pairs of jets flying in different directions! It looks like in the center of the Milky Way galaxy there were two black holes, which almost simultaneously “shot” their jets, which became the basis for future arms of the galaxy.
Of course, the picture is built on the basis of mathematically approximated arms of the galaxy, and the time of straightening of the arms is chosen arbitrarily. But the appearance of the galaxy itself is known to us only as a mathematical model built on the basis of astronomical observations. If we consider these observations to be sufficiently accurate, then the models are also quite accurate.
Let's continue.
In one of the arms of the galaxy, the Orion Arm, our solar system is located, which rotates along the perimeter of the galaxy.
The Orion Arm owes its name to the nearby stars of the Orion Constellation. It is located between the Sagittarius and Perseus arms (the two major arms of the Milky Way). In the Orion Arm, the Solar System lies near the inner edge in the Local Bubble, approximately 8500 parsecs from the Galactic center (the offset to the Galactic North Pole is only 10 parsecs).
Milky Way in section.
Relative to the center of the Milky Way, the solar system moves at a speed of 792 thousand kilometers per hour. To put things into perspective, if you were moving at the same speed, you could travel around the world in 3 minutes.
solar system
The period of time during which the Sun manages to make a full revolution around the center of the Milky Way is called the galactic year. It is estimated that the Sun supposedly lived only 18 galactic years.
Where is Earth located in the Milky Way galaxy.
The solar system rotates in the Orion Arm in a spiral from the center of the galaxy. 
A complete revolution of the earth's axis (precession of the equinoxes) is equal to the period of revolution of the Sun in the Orion arm. This is the so-called Platonic year, approximately equal to 26,000 years. During this time, the earth's axis travels a full circle around the Zodiac. One month of the Great Year includes 2160 years (25920:12) - this is one cosmic epoch, the time during which the earth’s axis passes through one sign of the Zodiac.
It is believed that our Solar system, in its run around the center of the Galaxy, is directed towards the constellation Hercules, located in the opposite direction to Orion. 
It is known that the star religion of the ancient Egyptians, which identified Osiris with the constellation Orion, and Isis with Sirius, was older than the solar cult of Amon-Ra. It is likely that in this early era, corresponding to the star religion of the Egyptians, the high priests were aware of the sacred role of Orion-Osiris, Sirius-Isis in the process of creating our World. However, later this knowledge was either lost or deliberately hidden from the large priestly caste. Much later, this star cult was replaced by the cults of the solar-zodiacal gods.
Based on the above, it is not surprising that the creators of our World, human life on planet Earth, came from the Orion-Sirius system, a higher World in relation to ours.
The majestic and ancient image of the sky served as a kind of natural prototype for what was formed and created on our earth. And it is connected primarily with the constellation Orion and the Sirius star system.
To be continued.
Milky Way- the galaxy that is most important for humans because it is their home. But when it comes to research, our galaxy becomes an unremarkable average spiral galaxy, like billions of other galaxies scattered throughout the Universe.
Looking at the night sky, outside of city illumination, you can clearly see a wide bright stripe running across the entire sky. The ancient inhabitants of the Earth called this bright object, formed long before the formation of the Earth, a river, a road, and other names with similar meanings. In reality, this is nothing more than the center of our galaxy, visible from one of its arms.
Structure of the Milky Way galaxy
The Milky Way is a type of barred spiral galaxy measuring about 100,000 light years in diameter. If we were able to look at it from above, we would be able to see a central bulge surrounded by four large spiral arms that wrap around the central area. Spiral galaxies are the most common and make up approximately two-thirds of all galaxies known to mankind.
Unlike an ordinary spiral, a barred spiral galaxy contains a kind of “bridge” running through its central region and two main spirals. In addition, in the inner part there is another pair of sleeves, which at a certain distance transform into a four-arm structure. Our solar system is located in one of the small arms known as the Orion arm, which is located between the large Perseus and Sagittarius arms.
The Milky Way does not stand still. It constantly rotates around its center. Thus, the arms are constantly moving in space. Our Solar System, along with the Orion Arm, moves at a speed of approximately 828,000 kilometers per hour. Even moving at such tremendous speed, the solar system would take about 230 million years to complete one revolution around the Milky Way.
Interesting facts about the Milky Way galaxy
- The history of the Milky Way galaxy begins its journey shortly after the Big Bang;
- The Milky Way contains some of the earliest stars in the Universe;
- The Milky Way has joined other galaxies in the distant past. Our galaxy is currently increasing its size by attracting material from the Magellanic Clouds;
- The Milky Way moves through space at a speed of 552 kilometers per second;
- At the center of the Milky Way there is a supermassive black hole called Sgr A* with a mass of about 4.3 million solar masses;
- The stars, gas and dust of the Milky Way move around the center at a speed of about 220 kilometers per second. The constancy of this speed for all stars, regardless of their distance to the galactic core, indicates the existence of mysterious dark matter;
The spiral arms that curve around the center of the galaxy contain large amounts of dust and gas, from which new stars are subsequently formed. These arms form what astronomers call the disk of the galaxy. Its thickness compared to the diameter of the galaxy is small and is about 1000 light years.
At the center of the Milky Way is the galactic core. It is full of dust, gas and stars. The Milky Way's core is the reason we only see a small fraction of all the stars in our galaxy. The dust and gas in it are so dense that scientists are simply unable to see what is in the center.
Recent research by scientists confirms the fact that at the center of the Milky Way there is a supergiant black hole, the mass of which is comparable to the mass of ~4.3 million solar masses. At the very beginning of history, this supermassive black hole could have been much smaller, but large reserves of dust and gas allowed it to grow to such a huge size.
Although black holes cannot be detected by direct observation, astronomers can see them due to gravitational effects. According to scientists, most galaxies in the Universe contain a supermassive black hole at their center.
The central core and spiral arms are not the only constituent elements of the Milky Way spiral galaxy. Our galaxy is surrounded by a spherical halo of hot gas, old stars and globular clusters. Although the halo extends over hundreds of thousands of light years, it contains approximately 2 percent more stars than those located in the galaxy's disk.
Dust, gas and stars are the most visible components of our galaxy, but the Milky Way contains another, as yet elusive, component - dark matter. Astronomers cannot yet directly detect it, but they can talk about its presence, just as in the case of black holes, through indirect signs. Recent research in this area shows that 90% of the mass of our galaxy comes from elusive dark matter.
The future of the Milky Way galaxy
The Milky Way not only revolves around itself, but also moves through the Universe. Even though space is a relatively empty place, there may be dust, gas and other galaxies along the way. Our galaxy is also not immune to a chance encounter with another massive cluster of stars.
In about 4 billion years, the Milky Way will collide with its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. Both galaxies are rushing towards each other at a speed of approximately 112 km/s. After the collision, both galaxies will provide a new influx of stellar material, which will lead to a new wave of star formation.
Fortunately, the inhabitants of the Earth are not very worried about this fact. By that time, our Sun will turn into a red giant and life on our planet will be impossible.
Useful articles that will answer most interesting questions about the Milky Way galaxy.
Deep space objects
Our Galaxy. Mysteries of the Milky Way
To some extent, we know more about distant star systems than about our home Galaxy - the Milky Way. It is more difficult to study its structure than the structure of any other galaxies, because it has to be studied from the inside, and many things are not so easy to see. Interstellar dust clouds absorb the light emitted by myriads of distant stars.
Only with the development of radio astronomy and the advent of infrared telescopes were scientists able to understand how our Galaxy works. But many details remain unclear to this day. Even the number of stars in the Milky Way is estimated rather roughly. The latest electronic reference books give figures from 100 to 300 billion stars.
Not so long ago, it was believed that our Galaxy has 4 large arms. But in 2008, astronomers from the University of Wisconsin published the results of processing about 800,000 infrared images that were taken by the Spitzer Space Telescope. Their analysis showed that the Milky Way has only two arms. As for the other branches, they are only narrow side branches. So, the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with two arms. It should be noted that most spiral galaxies known to us also have only two arms.
“Thanks to the Spitzer telescope, we have the opportunity to rethink the structure of the Milky Way,” said astronomer Robert Benjamin of the University of Wisconsin, speaking at a conference of the American Astronomical Society. “We are refining our understanding of the Galaxy in the same way that centuries ago, pioneers, traveling around the globe, refined and rethought previous ideas about what the Earth looks like.”
Since the early 90s of the 20th century, observations carried out in the infrared range have increasingly changed our knowledge of the structure of the Milky Way, because infrared telescopes make it possible to look through gas and dust clouds and see what is inaccessible to conventional telescopes.
2004 - The age of our Galaxy was estimated at 13.6 billion years. It arose shortly after. At first it was a diffuse gas bubble containing mainly hydrogen and helium. Over time, it turned into the huge spiral galaxy in which we now live.
general characteristics
But how did the evolution of our Galaxy proceed? How was it formed - slowly or, on the contrary, very quickly? How did it become saturated with heavy elements? How has the shape of the Milky Way and its chemical composition changed over billions of years? Scientists have yet to provide detailed answers to these questions.
The extent of our Galaxy is about 100,000 light years, and the average thickness of the galactic disk is about 3,000 light years (the thickness of its convex part, the bulge, reaches 16,000 light years). However, in 2008, Australian astronomer Brian Gensler, after analyzing the results of observations of pulsars, suggested that the galactic disk is probably twice as thick as is commonly believed.
Is our Galaxy large or small by cosmic standards? By comparison, the Andromeda nebula, our closest large galaxy, is approximately 150,000 light years across.
At the end of 2008, researchers established using radio astronomy methods that the Milky Way is rotating faster than previously thought. Judging by this indicator, its mass is approximately one and a half times higher than was commonly believed. According to various estimates, it varies from 1.0 to 1.9 trillion solar masses. Again, for comparison: the mass of the Andromeda nebula is estimated at at least 1.2 trillion solar masses.
Structure of galaxies
Black hole
So, the Milky Way is not inferior in size to the Andromeda nebula. “We should no longer think of our Galaxy as the little sister of the Andromeda nebula,” said astronomer Mark Reid of the Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University. At the same time, since the mass of our Galaxy is greater than expected, its gravitational force is also greater, which means that the likelihood of it colliding with other galaxies in our vicinity increases.
Our Galaxy is surrounded by a spherical halo, reaching a diameter of 165,000 light years. Astronomers sometimes call the halo a “galactic atmosphere.” It contains approximately 150 globular clusters, as well as a small number of ancient stars. The rest of the halo space is filled with rarefied gas, as well as dark matter. The mass of the latter is estimated at approximately a trillion solar masses.
The spiral arms of the Milky Way contain enormous amounts of hydrogen. This is where stars continue to be born. Over time, young stars leave the arms of galaxies and “move” into the galactic disk. However, the most massive and bright stars do not live long enough, so they do not have time to move away from their place of birth. It is no coincidence that the arms of our Galaxy glow so brightly. Most of the Milky Way consists of small, not very massive stars.
The central part of the Milky Way is located in the constellation Sagittarius. This area is surrounded by dark gas and dust clouds, behind which nothing can be seen. Only since the 1950s, using radio astronomy, have scientists been able to gradually discern what lies there. In this part of the Galaxy, a powerful radio source was discovered, called Sagittarius A. As observations have shown, a mass is concentrated here that exceeds the mass of the Sun by several million times. The most acceptable explanation for this fact is only one: in the center of our Galaxy is located.
Now, for some reason, she has taken a break for herself and is not particularly active. The flow of matter here is very poor. Maybe over time the black hole will develop an appetite. Then it will again begin to absorb the veil of gas and dust that surrounds it, and the Milky Way will join the list of active galaxies. It is possible that before this, stars will begin to rapidly form in the center of the Galaxy. Similar processes are likely to be repeated regularly.
2010 - American astronomers, using the Fermi Space Telescope, designed to observe sources of gamma radiation, discovered two mysterious structures in our Galaxy - two huge bubbles emitting gamma radiation. The diameter of each of them is on average 25,000 light years. They fly away from the center of the Galaxy in northern and southern directions. Perhaps we are talking about streams of particles that were once emitted by a black hole located in the middle of the Galaxy. Other researchers believe that we are talking about gas clouds that exploded during the birth of stars.
There are several dwarf galaxies around the Milky Way. The most famous of them are the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, which are connected to the Milky Way by a kind of hydrogen bridge, a huge plume of gas that stretches behind these galaxies. It was called the Magellanic Stream. Its extent is about 300,000 light years. Our Galaxy constantly absorbs the dwarf galaxies closest to it, in particular the Sagitarius Galaxy, which is located at a distance of 50,000 light years from the galactic center.
It remains to add that the Milky Way and the Andromeda nebula are moving towards each other. Presumably, after 3 billion years, both galaxies will merge together, forming a larger elliptical galaxy, which has already been called Milkyhoney.
Origin of the Milky Way
Andromeda's nebula
For a long time it was believed that the Milky Way formed gradually. 1962 - Olin Eggen, Donald Linden-Bell and Allan Sandage proposed a hypothesis that became known as the ELS model (named after the initial letters of their last names). According to it, a homogeneous cloud of gas once slowly rotated in place of the Milky Way. It resembled a ball and reached approximately 300,000 light years in diameter, and consisted mainly of hydrogen and helium. Under the influence of gravity, the protogalaxy shrank and became flat; at the same time, its rotation noticeably accelerated.
For almost two decades, this model suited scientists. But new observational results show that the Milky Way could not have arisen in the way theorists predicted.
According to this model, a halo forms first, and then a galactic disk. But the disk also contains very ancient stars, for example, the red giant Arcturus, whose age is more than 10 billion years, or numerous white dwarfs of the same age.
Globular clusters have been discovered in both the galactic disk and halo that are younger than the ELS model allows. Obviously, they are absorbed by our late Galaxy.
Many stars in the halo rotate in a different direction than the Milky Way. Maybe they, too, were once outside the Galaxy, but then they were drawn into this “stellar vortex” - like a random swimmer in a whirlpool.
1978 - Leonard Searle and Robert Zinn proposed their model of the formation of the Milky Way. It was designated as "Model SZ". Now the history of the Galaxy has become noticeably more complicated. Not so long ago, its youth, in the opinion of astronomers, was described as simply as in the opinion of physicists - rectilinear translational motion. The mechanics of what was happening were clearly visible: there was a homogeneous cloud; it consisted only of evenly spread gas. Nothing by its presence complicated the theorists' calculations.
Now, instead of one huge cloud in the visions of scientists, several small, intricately scattered clouds appeared at once. Stars were visible among them; however, they were located only in the halo. Inside the halo everything was seething: clouds collided; gas masses were mixed and compacted. Over time, a galactic disk was formed from this mixture. New stars began to appear in it. But this model was subsequently criticized.
It was impossible to understand what connected the halo and the galactic disk. This condensed disk and the sparse stellar shell around it had little in common. After Searle and Zinn compiled their model, it turned out that the halo rotates too slowly to form a galactic disk. Judging by the distribution of chemical elements, the latter arose from protogalactic gas. Finally, the angular momentum of the disk turned out to be 10 times higher than the halo.
The whole secret is that both models contain a grain of truth. The trouble is that they are too simple and one-sided. Both now seem to be fragments of the same recipe that created the Milky Way. Eggen and his colleagues read a few lines from this recipe, Searle and Zinn read a few others. Therefore, trying to re-imagine the history of our Galaxy, we now and then notice familiar lines that we have already read once.
Milky Way. Computer model
So it all started shortly after the Big Bang. “Today it is generally accepted that fluctuations in the density of dark matter gave rise to the first structures - the so-called dark halos. Thanks to the force of gravity, these structures did not disintegrate,” notes German astronomer Andreas Burkert, author of a new model of the birth of the Galaxy.
Dark halos became embryos - nuclei - of future galaxies. Gas accumulated around them under the influence of gravity. A homogeneous collapse occurred, as described by the ELS model. Already 500-1000 million years after the Big Bang, gas accumulations surrounding dark halos became “incubators” of stars. Small protogalaxies appeared here. The first globular clusters arose in dense clouds of gas, because stars were born here hundreds of times more often than anywhere else. Protogalaxies collided and merged with each other - this is how large galaxies were formed, including our Milky Way. Today it is surrounded by dark matter and a halo of single stars and their globular clusters, ruins of a universe more than 12 billion years old.
There were many very massive stars in the protogalaxies. Less than a few tens of millions of years passed before most of them exploded. These explosions enriched the gas clouds with heavy chemical elements. Therefore, the stars that were born in the galactic disk were not the same as in the halo - they contained hundreds of times more metals. In addition, these explosions generated powerful galactic vortices that heated the gas and swept it beyond the protogalaxies. A separation of gas masses and dark matter occurred. This was the most important stage in the formation of galaxies, not previously taken into account in any model.
At the same time, dark halos increasingly collided with each other. Moreover, the protogalaxies stretched out or disintegrated. These catastrophes are reminiscent of the chains of stars preserved in the halo of the Milky Way since the days of “youth”. By studying their location, it is possible to assess the events that took place in that era. Gradually, these stars formed a vast sphere - the halo we see. As it cooled, gas clouds penetrated inside it. Their angular momentum was conserved, so they did not collapse into one single point, but formed a rotating disk. All this happened more than 12 billion years ago. The gas was now compressed as described in the ELS model.
At this time, the “bulge” of the Milky Way is formed - its middle part, reminiscent of an ellipsoid. The bulge is made up of very old stars. It probably arose during the merger of the largest protogalaxies that held gas clouds for the longest time. In the middle of it were neutron stars and tiny black holes - relics of exploding supernovae. They merged with each other, simultaneously absorbing gas streams. Perhaps this is how the huge black hole that now resides in the center of our Galaxy was born.
The history of the Milky Way is much more chaotic than previously thought. Our native Galaxy, impressive even by cosmic standards, was formed after a series of impacts and mergers - after a series of cosmic disasters. Traces of those ancient events can still be found today.
For example, not all stars in the Milky Way revolve around the galactic center. Probably, over the billions of years of its existence, our Galaxy has “absorbed” many fellow travelers. Every tenth star in the galactic halo is less than 10 billion years old. By that time, the Milky Way had already formed. Perhaps these are the remnants of once captured dwarf galaxies. A group of English scientists from the Astronomical Institute (Cambridge), led by Gerard Gilmour, calculated that the Milky Way could apparently absorb from 40 to 60 Carina-type dwarf galaxies.
In addition, the Milky Way attracts huge masses of gas. Thus, in 1958, Dutch astronomers noticed many small spots in the halo. In fact, they turned out to be gas clouds, which consisted mainly of hydrogen atoms and were rushing towards the galactic disk.
Our Galaxy will not restrain its appetite in the future. Perhaps it will absorb the dwarf galaxies closest to us - Fornax, Carina and, probably, Sextans, and then merge with the Andromeda nebula. Around the Milky Way – this insatiable “stellar cannibal” – it will become even more deserted.
Our galaxy is called the Milky Way; there are hundreds of billions of stars in it. Until 1924, it was believed that our galaxy was the only one in space; a number of discoveries made in these matters changed the idea of the world. The Universe does not end beyond the Milky Way; today it is already known that we are surrounded by about two hundred billion galaxies, each of which is unique in its own way.
All galaxies are characterized by a common pattern: they are aggressive, are born violently and die violently. The galaxy called the Milky Way is huge, its dimensions are calculated in light years (a light year is about 10 trillion km). Our galaxy is just over 12 billion years old and is considered a fairly small galaxy in the Universe.
How the galaxy works, first of all, it is a huge cluster of stars, which numbers more than one hundred billion. The Milky Way looks like a huge disk with a thickening in the center, with spiral arms of gigantic proportions. There are countless such systems in space. Experts believe that galaxies were formed as a result of a giant explosion in space.
As a result, after about 200 million years, the first stars formed, which gravity eventually pulled into galaxies, i.e., the universe appeared. The Milky Way, like galaxies like it, is made up of many small structures. Gravitational forces pulled together and rotated the stars, this continued until gravity turned such a cluster into a flat disk.
Somewhat later, stars and gas formed giant stellar arms; similar processes, according to scientists, have occurred more than one billion times throughout the universe. Each of the existing galaxies revolves around a single center. According to scientists, only a black hole can change the behavior of a galaxy, and not just a hole, but a supermassive one.
The “food” for supermassive black holes is gas and stars, which are absorbed in huge quantities. If a lot of such “food” is consumed, it may be released in the form of a beam of pure energy. This phenomenon is called a quasar, when astronomers see such a phenomenon in some galaxy, it means there is a super-powerful black hole there.
At the center of our galaxy there is a supermassive black hole, the size of which in the center of the Milky Way is 24 million km. It would seem how the galaxy moves, because the black hole is a powerful source of gravity and under its influence the star system must disintegrate. Scientists astronomers have come to the conclusion that there is an even more powerful force than a supermassive black hole, they gave it the name black matter. It has an even more powerful force of attraction.
Black matter is not only the binding force of the galaxy, but also supports it and contributes to its new birth. It is invisible and intangible, but it is believed that it is constantly among us. As far as the danger of planet Earth falling into a black hole is likely, scientists believe that it is minimal. After all, even by cosmic standards it is located at a great distance from the black hole - about 2500 light years.
Divided into social groups, our Milky Way galaxy will belong to a strong “middle class”. Thus, it belongs to the most common type of galaxy, but at the same time it is not average in size or mass. Galaxies that are smaller than the Milky Way are larger than those that are larger than it. Our “star island” also has at least 14 satellites - other dwarf galaxies. They are doomed to circle around the Milky Way until they are absorbed by it, or fly away from an intergalactic collision. Well, for now this is the only place where life probably exists - that is, you and me.
But the Milky Way remains the most mysterious galaxy in the Universe: being on the very edge of the “star island”, we see only a part of its billions of stars. And the galaxy is completely invisible - it is covered with dense arms of stars, gas and dust. Today we will talk about the facts and secrets of the Milky Way.