Tell Me About Milky Way

The Milky way is probably the most wonderful-looking and mysterious in the sky. It is a wide band of jewels stretching from one end of the sky to the other. When people gazed at the sky even in ancient times they enjoyed the wonder and beauty of this spectacle as we do. In reality, they did not know any details about the Milky Way. They made beautiful explanations about it.

In the early Christian times, they defined it as the path of the angels, through which they reached heaven. From the earth, they could have a glimpse of the glory that existed beyond, and they imagined, it was an opening in the heavens. Having a peep into the facts does not in any way reduce the wonder of it. The facts remain amazing as any “made up” idea.

The shape of our galaxy is like a watch, flat and round. Looking down on it from above it would appear an immense watch. But we are inside the galaxy and when we look up, we are looking towards the edge from inside the “watch”. We see the edge or curving periphery around us. Because there are millions of stars in the galaxy, so, we see it as the Milky Way.

There are about 3,000,000,000 stars in the galaxy. It takes 8 minutes for the sunlight to reach the earth. It takes 27,000 years for the light to reach the sun from the center of the galaxy.

The galaxy rotates about its center like a wheel. It takes about 200,000,000 years to make one revolution. It is enough to give us an idea about its size.