SOAR-High Web-Based Collaboration

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Earth System Science
A Clerc Center Web-Based Collaboration
Gallaudet University, Washington, D.C.

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Activity 4.4 Our Milky Way Galaxy Picture: The Lund Observatory mosaic of the Milky Way

Galaxy Facts

The Earth is the third planet from the sun.
The Earth is 149.5 million km (92.9 million miles) from the Sun.
Our Sun is a star in an enormous spiral galaxy.
The galaxy has more than 200 billion stars held together by gravity.
The galaxy (our very own!) is called the Milky Way.
The Earth is approximately 3/5 of the way out from the center of the galaxy.
Light needs 100,000 years to travel across our galaxy!

Spiraling into Space

As the Earth and the other planets orbit around the sun, the sun itself moves through space at 150 miles per second (small arrow), swinging around with the other stars of the Milky Way in its own kind of orbit once every 200 million year. At the same time the whole Milky Way is plunging along through space (large arrow). The two motions together make the sun and its family of planets trace a spiral path (lower right).

Look at the Milky Way in different EM wavelengths

Have you ever seen our galaxy? On a dark night, you can look up at the sky, and see a faint light path of stars across the sky. What you are seeing is our galaxy, called the Milky Way. You are looking at it on it's edge, across the disk of the galaxy.

Here is a web page that shows how our galaxy looks when viewed in different wavelengths. Take a look. Notice how different wavelengths show different features of our galaxy.

Click here: Multi-wavelength Milky Way