The location of the milky way relative to the center of the universe. The location of the sun in the milky way galaxy. The structure of our Galaxy

The Milky Way Galaxy contains the solar system, Earth and all the stars that are visible to the naked eye. Together with the Triangulum Galaxy, Andromeda Galaxy and dwarf galaxies and satellites, it forms the Local Group of galaxies, which is part of the Virgo Supercluster.

According to ancient legend, when Zeus decided to make his son Hercules immortal, he placed him on the breast of his wife Hera to drink milk. But the wife woke up and, seeing that she was feeding her stepchild, pushed him away. A stream of milk splashed out and turned into the Milky Way. In the Soviet astronomical school it was simply called the “Milky Way system” or “our Galaxy.” Outside Western culture, there are many names for this galaxy. The word “milky” is replaced by other epithets. The galaxy consists of about 200 billion stars. Most of them are located in the shape of a disk. Most of the Milky Way's mass is contained in a halo of dark matter.

In the 1980s, scientists proposed that the Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy. The hypothesis was confirmed in 2005 using the Spitzer telescope. It turned out that the central bar of the galaxy is larger than previously thought. The diameter of the galactic disk is approximately 100 thousand light years. Compared to the halo, it rotates much faster. At different distances from the center its speed is not the same. Studies of the disk's rotation have helped estimate its mass, which is 150 billion more than the mass of the Sun. Near the plane of the disk, young star clusters and stars are collected, which form a flat component. Scientists suggest that many galaxies have black holes at their cores.

A large number of stars are collected in the central regions of the Milky Way Galaxy. The distance between them is much smaller than in the vicinity of the Sun. The length of the galactic bridge, according to scientists, is 27 thousand light years. It passes through the center of the Milky Way at an angle of 44 degrees ± 10 degrees to the line between the center of the galaxy and the Sun. Its components are predominantly red stars. The jumper is surrounded by a ring called the 5 kiloparsec ring. It contains a large amount of molecular hydrogen. It is also an active star-forming region in the Galaxy. If observed from the Andromeda Galaxy, the Milky Way bar would be its brightest part.

Since the Milky Way Galaxy is considered to be spiral, it has spiral arms that are located in the plane of the disk. Around the disk is a spherical corona. The solar system is located 8.5 thousand parsecs from the center of the galaxy. According to recent observations, we can say that our Galaxy has 2 arms and a couple more arms in the inner part. They transform into a four-armed structure, which is observed in the neutral hydrogen line.

The galaxy's halo has a spherical shape that extends beyond the Milky Way by 5–10 thousand light years. Its temperature is approximately 5 * 10 5 K. The halo consists of old, low-mass, dim stars. They can be found both in the form of globular clusters and individually. The bulk of the galaxy's mass is dark matter, forming a dark matter halo. Its mass is approximately 600–3000 billion solar masses. Star clusters and halo stars move around the galactic center in elongated orbits. The halo rotates very slowly.

History of the discovery of the Milky Way Galaxy

Many celestial bodies are combined into various rotating systems. Thus, the Moon revolves around the Earth, and the satellites of the major planets form their own systems. The Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun. Scientists had a completely logical question: is the Sun part of an even larger system?

William Herschel first tried to answer this question. He calculated the number of stars in different parts of the sky and found out that there is a large circle in the sky - the galactic equator, dividing the sky into two parts. Here the number of stars turned out to be greatest. The closer this or that part of the sky is located to this circle, the more stars there are on it. Ultimately, it was discovered that the Milky Way is located at the equator of the galaxy. Herschel came to the conclusion that all the stars form one star system.

Initially, it was believed that everything in the Universe is part of our galaxy. But Kant also argued that some nebulae could be separate galaxies, like the Milky Way. It was only when Edwin Hubble measured the distance to some spiral nebulae and showed that they could not be part of the Galaxy that Kant's hypothesis was proven.

Future of the Galaxy

In the future, collisions of our Galaxy with others, including Andromeda, are possible. But there are no specific predictions yet. It is believed that in 4 billion years the Milky Way will engulf the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, and in 5 billion years it will be engulfed by the Andromeda Nebula.

Planets of the Milky Way

Despite the fact that stars are constantly born and die, their number is clearly calculated. Scientists believe that at least one planet revolves around every star. This means that there are from 100 to 200 billion planets in the Universe. The scientists who worked on this claim studied red dwarf stars. They are smaller than the Sun and make up 75% of all the stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. Particular attention was paid to the star Kepler-32, which “hosted” 5 planets.

Planets are much more difficult to detect than stars because they do not emit light. We can confidently say about the existence of a planet only when it obscures the light of a star.

There are also planets that are similar to our Earth, but there are not so many of them. There are many types of planets, such as pulsar planets, gas giants, brown dwarfs... If the planet is made of rocks, it will not look much like Earth.

Recent studies claim that there are from 11 to 40 billion Earth-like planets in the galaxy. Scientists examined 42 stars similar to the Sun and discovered 603 exoplanets, 10 of which met the search criteria. It has been proven that all planets similar to Earth can maintain the necessary temperature for the existence of liquid water, which, in turn, will help the emergence of life.

Near the outer edge of the Milky Way, stars have been discovered that move in a special way. They drift at the edge. Scientists suggest that this is all that remains of the galaxies that were swallowed up by the Milky Way. Their encounter happened many years ago.

Galaxy satellites

As we have already said, the Milky Way Galaxy is spiral. It is a spiral of imperfect shape. For many years, scientists could not find an explanation for the galaxy's bulge. Now everyone has come to the conclusion that this is due to satellite galaxies and dark matter. They are very small and cannot influence the Milky Way. But when dark matter moves through the Magellanic Clouds, waves are created. They influence gravitational attractions. Under this action, hydrogen evaporates from the galactic center. Clouds orbit the Milky Way.

Although the Milky Way is called unique in many respects, it is not very rare. If we take into account the fact that there are approximately 170 billion galaxies in the field of view, we can argue about the existence of galaxies similar to ours. In 2012, astronomers found an exact copy of the Milky Way. It even has two moons that correspond to the Magellanic Clouds. By the way, it is assumed that in a couple of billion years they will dissolve. Finding such a galaxy was an incredible success. It was named NGC 1073. It is so similar to the Milky Way that astronomers are studying it to learn more about our galaxy.

Galactic year

An Earth year is the time it takes for the planet to make a full revolution around the Sun. In the same way, the solar system revolves around a black hole, which is located at the center of the galaxy. Its full revolution is 250 million years. When the Solar System is described, it is rarely mentioned that it moves through space, like everything else in the world. Its speed is 792,000 km per hour relative to the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. If we compare, we, moving at a similar speed, could go around the whole world in 3 minutes. A galactic year is the time it takes for the Sun to complete one revolution around the Milky Way. At last count, the sun lived for 18 galactic years.

Science

Each person has his own idea of ​​what home is. For some it is a roof over their head, for others a home is planet earth, a rocky ball that plows through outer space along its closed path around the Sun.

No matter how big our planet may seem to us, it is just a grain of sand in giant star system, the size of which is difficult to imagine. This star system is the Milky Way galaxy, which can also rightfully be called our home.

Galaxy Sleeves

Milky Way- a spiral galaxy with a bar that runs through the center of the spiral. About two-thirds of all known galaxies are spiral, and two-thirds of them are barred. That is, the Milky Way is included in the list most common galaxies.

Spiral galaxies have arms that extend out from the center, like wheel spokes that twist in a spiral. Our solar system is located in the central part of one of the arms, which is called Orion's sleeve.

The Orion Arm was once thought to be a small "offshoot" of larger arms such as Perseus arm or Shield-Centauri arm. Not long ago, it was suggested that the Orion arm is indeed branch of the Perseus arm and does not leave the center of the galaxy.

The problem is that we cannot see our galaxy from the outside. We can only observe those things that are around us, and judge what shape the galaxy has, being, as it were, inside it. However, scientists were able to calculate that this sleeve has a length of approximately 11 thousand light years and thickness 3500 light years.

Supermassive black hole

The smallest supermassive black holes that scientists have discovered are approximately V 200 thousand times heavier than the sun. For comparison: ordinary black holes have the mass of just 10 times exceeding the mass of the Sun. At the center of the Milky Way is an incredibly massive black hole, the mass of which is difficult to imagine.

For the past 10 years, astronomers have been monitoring the activity of stars in orbit around the star. Sagittarius A, a dense region at the center of the spiral of our galaxy. Based on the movement of these stars, it was determined that in the center Sagittarius A*, which is hidden behind a dense cloud of dust and gas, there is a supermassive black hole whose mass 4.1 million times more than the mass of the Sun!

The animation below shows the actual motion of stars around a black hole. from 1997 to 2011 in the region of one cubic parsec in the center of our galaxy. When stars approach a black hole, they loop around it at incredible speeds. For example, one of these stars, S 0-2 moves at speed 18 million kilometers per hour: black hole first attracts her, and then sharply pushes her away.

Just recently, scientists observed how a cloud of gas approached a black hole and was torn to pieces by its massive gravitational field. Parts of this cloud were swallowed up by the hole, and the remaining parts began to resemble long thin noodles longer than 160 billion kilometers.

Magneticparticles

In addition to the presence of a supermassive all-consuming black hole, the center of our galaxy boasts incredible activity: old stars die, and new ones are born with enviable consistency.

Not long ago, scientists noticed something else at the galactic center - a stream of high-energy particles that extend over a distance 15 thousand parsecs across the galaxy. This distance is approximately half the diameter of the Milky Way.

The particles are invisible to the naked eye, but magnetic imaging shows that particle geysers occupy approx. two thirds of the visible sky:

What is behind this phenomenon? For one million years, stars appeared and disappeared, feeding never stopping flow, directed towards the outer arms of the galaxy. The total energy of the geyser is a million times greater than the energy of a supernova.

Particles move at incredible speeds. Based on the structure of the particle flow, astronomers built magnetic field model, which dominates our galaxy.

Newstars

How often do new stars form in our galaxy? Researchers have been asking this question for many years. It was possible to map the areas of our galaxy where there is aluminum-26, an isotope of aluminum that appears where stars are born or die. Thus, it was possible to find out that every year in the Milky Way galaxy 7 new stars and approximately twice in a hundred years a large star explodes in a supernova.

The Milky Way Galaxy does not produce the largest number of stars. When a star dies, it releases such raw materials into space as like hydrogen and helium. Over hundreds of thousands of years, these particles coalesce into molecular clouds that eventually become so dense that their center collapses under their own gravity, thus forming a new star.

It looks like a kind of eco-system: death feeds new life. Particles from a particular star will be part of a billion new stars in the future. This is how things are in our galaxy, which is why it is evolving. This leads to the formation of new conditions under which the likelihood of the emergence of Earth-like planets increases.

Planets of the Milky Way galaxy

Despite the constant death and birth of new stars in our galaxy, their number has been calculated: the Milky Way is home to approximately 100 billion stars. Based on new research, scientists suggest that every star is orbited by at least one planet or more. That is, in our corner of the Universe there is only from 100 to 200 billion planets.

The scientists who came to this conclusion studied stars like red dwarfs of spectral class M. These stars are smaller than our Sun. They make up 75 percent of all the stars in the Milky Way. In particular, researchers paid attention to the star Kepler-32, which sheltered five planets.

How do astronomers discover new planets?

Planets, unlike stars, are difficult to detect because they do not emit their own light. We can say with certainty that there is a planet around a star only when it stands in front of his star and blocks out its light.

The planets of Kepler -32 behave exactly like exoplanets orbiting other M dwarf stars. They are located approximately at the same distance and have similar sizes. That is, the Kepler -32 system is typical system for our galaxy.

If there are more than 100 billion planets in our galaxy, how many of them are Earth-like planets? It turns out, not so much. There are dozens of different types of planets: gas giants, pulsar planets, brown dwarfs, and planets where molten metal rains from the sky. Those planets that consist of rocks can be located too far or too close to the star, so they are unlikely to resemble Earth.

The results of recent studies have shown that in our galaxy there are more terrestrial planets than previously thought, namely: from 11 to 40 billion. Scientists took as an example 42 thousand stars, similar to our Sun, and began to look for exoplanets that can orbit around them in a zone where it is not too hot and not too cold. It was discovered 603 exoplanets, among which 10 matched the search criteria.

By analyzing data about stars, scientists have proven the existence of billions of Earth-like planets that they have yet to officially discover. Theoretically, these planets are capable of maintaining temperatures for existence of liquid water on them, which, in turn, will allow life to arise.

Collision of galaxies

Even if new stars are constantly being formed in the Milky Way galaxy, it will not be able to increase in size, unless it gets new material from somewhere else. And the Milky Way is really expanding.

Previously, we were not sure exactly how the galaxy manages to grow, but recent discoveries have suggested that the Milky Way is galaxy-cannibal, meaning it has consumed other galaxies in the past and will likely do so again, at least until some larger galaxy swallows it.

Using a space telescope "Hubble" and information obtained from photographs taken over seven years, scientists have discovered stars at the outer edge of the Milky Way that move in a special way. Instead of moving toward or away from the center of the galaxy like other stars, they seem to drift toward the edge. It is believed that this star cluster is all that remains of another galaxy that was absorbed by the Milky Way galaxy.

This collision apparently occurred several billion years ago and, most likely, it will not be the last. Considering the speed at which we are moving, our galaxy through 4.5 billion years will collide with the Andromeda galaxy.

Influence of satellite galaxies

Although the Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, it is not exactly a perfect spiral. At its center there is peculiar bulge, which appeared as a result of hydrogen gas molecules escaping from the flat disk of the spiral.

For years, astronomers have puzzled over why the galaxy has such a bulge. It is logical to assume that the gas is drawn into the disk itself, and does not escape out. The longer they studied this question, the more confused they became: the molecules of the bulge are not only pushed outward, but also vibrate at their own frequency.

What could cause this effect? Today, scientists believe that dark matter and satellite galaxies are to blame - Magellanic Clouds. These two galaxies are very small: taken together they make up only 2 percent of the total mass of the Milky Way. This is not enough to have an impact on him.

However, when dark matter moves through the clouds, it creates waves that apparently influence the gravitational attraction, strengthening it, and hydrogen under the influence of this attraction escapes from the center of the galaxy.

Magellanic Clouds orbit the Milky Way. The spiral arms of the Milky Way, under the influence of these galaxies, seem to sway in the place where they pass.

Twin galaxies

Although the Milky Way galaxy can be called unique in many respects, it is not very rare. Spiral galaxies predominate in the Universe. Considering that only in our field of vision are about 170 billion galaxies, we can assume that somewhere there are galaxies very similar to ours.

What if there is a galaxy somewhere - an exact copy of the Milky Way? In 2012, astronomers discovered such a galaxy. It even has two small moons that orbit it that exactly match our Magellanic Clouds. By the way, only 3 percent spiral galaxies have similar companions, whose lifespan is relatively short. The Magellanic Clouds are likely to dissolve in a couple of billion years.

To discover such a similar galaxy, with satellites, a supermassive black hole in the center and the same size, is incredible luck. This galaxy was named NGC 1073 and it's so similar to the Milky Way that astronomers are studying it to find out more about our own galaxy. For example, we can see it from the side and thus better imagine what the Milky Way looks like.

Galactic year

On Earth, a year is the time during which the Earth manages to make full revolution around the Sun. Every 365 days we return to the same point. Our solar system revolves in the same way around a black hole located at the center of the galaxy. However, it makes a full revolution in 250 million years. That is, since the dinosaurs disappeared, we have only made a quarter of a full revolution.

Descriptions of the solar system rarely mention that it moves through space, like everything else in our world. Relative to the center of the Milky Way, the solar system moves at a speed 792 thousand kilometers per hour. To put it into perspective, if you were moving at the same speed, you could travel around the world in 3 minutes.

The period of time during which the Sun manages to make a complete revolution around the center of the Milky Way is called galactic year. It is estimated that the Sun has lived only 18 galactic years.

quoted1 > > Where is the Earth located in the Milky Way?

Place of the Earth and the Solar System in the Milky Way Galaxy: where the Sun and planet are located, parameters, distance from the center and plane, structure with photo.

For many centuries, scientists believed that the Earth was the center of the entire Universe. It’s not hard to think why this happened, because the Earth is in and we couldn’t look beyond it. Only a century of research and observation helped to understand that all celestial bodies in the system revolve around the main star.

The system itself also rotates around the galactic center. Although then people did not understand this either. We had to spend a certain period of time to guess about the existence of many galaxies and determine their place in ours. What place does Earth occupy in the Milky Way galaxy?

Location of the Earth in the Milky Way

Earth is located in the Milky Way galaxy. We live in a huge and spacious place, spanning 100,000-120,000 light years in diameter and approximately 1000 light years in width. The territory is home to 400 billion stars.

The galaxy received such a scale thanks to its unusual diet - it absorbed and continues to be fed by other small galaxies. For example, on the dinner table right now is the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy, whose stars join our disk. But if we compare with others, ours is average. Even the next one is twice as large.

Structure

The planet lives in a spiral-type galaxy with a bar. For many years it was thought that there were 4 arms, but recent studies confirm only two: Scutum-Centauri and Carina-Sagittarius. They emerged from dense waves orbiting the galaxy. That is, these are grouped stars and gas clouds.

What about a photo of the Milky Way galaxy? All of them are artistic interpretations or real photographs, but very similar to our galaxies. Of course, we didn’t come to this right away, since no one could say exactly what it looks like (we are inside it, after all).

Modern instruments allow us to count up to 400 billion stars, each of which can have a planet. 10-15% of the mass goes to “luminous matter”, and the rest is stars. Despite the huge array, only 6000 light years in the visible spectrum are open to us for observation. But here infrared devices come into play, opening up new territories.

Around the galaxy there is a huge halo of dark matter, covering as much as 90% of the total mass. No one yet knows what it is, but its presence confirms the impact on other objects. It is believed that it keeps the Milky Way from disintegrating as it rotates.

Location of the Solar System in the Milky Way

The Earth is 25,000 light years away from the galactic center and the same amount from the edge. If you imagine the galaxy as a giant musical record, then we are located halfway between the central part and the edge. More specifically, we occupy a place in the Orion arm between the two main arms. It extends 3,500 light-years in diameter and stretches out to 10,000 light-years.

The galaxy can be seen dividing the heavens into two hemispheres. This suggests that we are located close to the galactic plane. The Milky Way has a low surface brightness due to the abundance of dust and gas obscuring the disk. This makes it difficult not only to see the central part, but also to look at the other side.

The system takes 250 million years to complete its entire orbital path—a “cosmic year.” During their last passage, dinosaurs roamed the Earth. What will happen next? Will people go extinct or will they be replaced by a new species?

In general, we live in a huge and amazing place. New knowledge makes us get used to the fact that the Universe is much larger than all assumptions. Now you know where Earth is in the Milky Way.

The Milky Way Galaxy is very majestic and beautiful. This huge world is our Motherland, our Solar system. All the stars and other objects that are visible to the naked eye in the night sky are our galaxy. Although there are some objects that are located in the Andromeda Nebula, a neighbor of our Milky Way.

Description of the Milky Way

The Milky Way Galaxy is huge, 100 thousand light years in size, and, as you know, one light year is equal to 9460730472580 km. Our solar system is located 27,000 light years from the center of the galaxy, in one of the arms called the Orion arm.

Our solar system orbits the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This happens in the same way as the Earth rotates around the Sun. The solar system completes a full revolution in 200 million years.

Deformation

The Milky Way Galaxy appears as a disk with a bulge in the center. It's not the perfect shape. On one side there is a bend north of the center of the galaxy, and on the other it goes down, then turns to the right. Outwardly, this deformation somewhat resembles a wave. The disk itself is deformed. This is due to the presence of the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds nearby. They rotate around the Milky Way very quickly - this was confirmed by the Hubble telescope. These two dwarf galaxies are often called satellites of the Milky Way. The clouds create a gravitationally bound system that is very heavy and quite massive due to the heavy elements in the mass. It is assumed that they seem to be in a tug-of-war between galaxies, creating vibrations. As a result, the Milky Way galaxy is deformed. The structure of our galaxy is special; it has a halo.

Scientists believe that in billions of years the Milky Way will absorb the Magellanic Clouds, and after some time it will be absorbed by Andromeda.

Halo

Wondering what kind of galaxy the Milky Way is, scientists began to study it. They managed to find out that 90% of its mass consists of dark matter, which is why a mysterious halo appears. Everything that is visible to the naked eye from Earth, namely that luminous matter, is approximately 10% of the galaxy.

Numerous studies have confirmed that the Milky Way has a halo. Scientists have compiled various models that take into account the invisible part and without it. After experiments, it was suggested that if there were no halo, then the speed of movement of the planets and other elements of the Milky Way would be less than now. Because of this feature, it was assumed that most of the components consist of invisible mass or dark matter.

Number of stars

The Milky Way galaxy is considered one of the most unique. The structure of our galaxy is unusual; there are more than 400 billion stars in it. About a quarter of them are large stars. Note: other galaxies have fewer stars. There are about ten billion stars in the Cloud, some others consist of a billion, and in the Milky Way there are more than 400 billion different stars, and only a small part is visible from Earth, about 3000. It is impossible to say exactly how many stars are contained in the Milky Way, so how the galaxy is constantly losing objects due to them going supernova.

Gases and dust

Approximately 15% of the galaxy is dust and gases. Maybe because of them our galaxy is called the Milky Way? Despite its enormous size, we can see about 6,000 light years ahead, but the size of the galaxy is 120,000 light years. It may be larger, but even the most powerful telescopes cannot see beyond that. This is due to the accumulation of gas and dust.

The thickness of the dust does not allow visible light to pass through, but infrared light passes through, allowing scientists to create star maps.

What happened before

According to scientists, our galaxy has not always been like this. The Milky Way was created by the merger of several other galaxies. This giant captured other planets and areas, which had a strong impact on the size and shape. Even now, planets are being captured by the Milky Way galaxy. An example of this is the objects of Canis Major, a dwarf galaxy located near our Milky Way. Canis stars are periodically added to our universe, and from ours they move to other galaxies, for example, objects are exchanged with the Sagittarius galaxy.

View of the Milky Way

Not a single scientist or astronomer can say exactly what our Milky Way looks like from above. This is due to the fact that Earth is located in the Milky Way galaxy, 26,000 light years from the center. Because of this location, it is not possible to take pictures of the entire Milky Way. Therefore, any image of a galaxy is either pictures of other visible galaxies or someone’s imagination. And we can only guess what she really looks like. There is even a possibility that we now know as much about it as the ancient people who believed the Earth to be flat.

Center

The center of the Milky Way galaxy is called Sagittarius A* - a great source of radio waves, suggesting that there is a huge black hole at its very heart. According to assumptions, its size is a little more than 22 million kilometers, and this is the hole itself.

All the substances that try to get into the hole form a huge disk, almost 5 million times larger than our Sun. But even this retraction force does not prevent new stars from forming at the edge of the black hole.

Age

Based on estimates of the composition of the Milky Way galaxy, it was possible to establish an estimated age of about 14 billion years. The oldest star is just over 13 billion years old. The age of a galaxy is calculated by determining the age of the oldest star and the phases preceding its formation. Based on the available data, scientists have suggested that our universe is about 13.6-13.8 billion years old.

First, the bulge of the Milky Way was formed, then its middle part, in the place of which a black hole subsequently formed. Three billion years later, a disk with sleeves appeared. Gradually it changed, and only about ten billion years ago it began to look the way it does now.

We are part of something bigger

All the stars in the Milky Way galaxy are part of a larger galactic structure. We are part of the Virgo Supercluster. The closest galaxies to the Milky Way, such as the Magellanic Cloud, Andromeda and other fifty galaxies, are one cluster, the Virgo Supercluster. A supercluster is a group of galaxies that occupies a huge area. And this is only a small part of the stellar surroundings.

The Virgo Supercluster contains more than a hundred groups of clusters over an area more than 110 million light-years in diameter. The Virgo cluster itself is a small part of the Laniakea supercluster, and it, in turn, is part of the Pisces-Cetus complex.

Rotation

Our Earth moves around the Sun, making a full revolution in 1 year. Our Sun orbits in the Milky Way around the center of the galaxy. Our galaxy moves in relation to a special radiation. CMB radiation is a convenient reference point that allows us to determine the speed of a wide variety of matters in the Universe. Studies have shown that our galaxy rotates at a speed of 600 kilometers per second.

Appearance of the name

The galaxy got its name because of its special appearance, reminiscent of spilled milk in the night sky. The name was given to it back in Ancient Rome. Back then it was called the “milk road.” To this day it is called the Milky Way, associating the name with the appearance of a white stripe in the night sky, with spilled milk.

References to the galaxy have been found since the era of Aristotle, who said that the Milky Way is the place where the celestial spheres contact the terrestrial ones. Until the telescope was created, no one added anything to this opinion. And only from the seventeenth century people began to look at the world differently.

Our neighbors

For some reason, many people think that the closest galaxy to the Milky Way is Andromeda. But this opinion is not entirely correct. Our closest “neighbor” is the Canis Major galaxy, located inside the Milky Way. It is located at a distance of 25,000 light years from us, and 42,000 light years from the center. In fact, we are closer to Canis Major than to the black hole at the center of the galaxy.

Before the discovery of Canis Major at a distance of 70 thousand light years, Sagittarius was considered the closest neighbor, and after that the Large Magellanic Cloud. Unusual stars with enormous class M densities were discovered in Canis.

According to the theory, the Milky Way swallowed Canis Major along with all its stars, planets and other objects.

Collision of galaxies

Recently, information has become increasingly common that the closest galaxy to the Milky Way, the Andromeda Nebula, will swallow our universe. These two giants formed at about the same time - about 13.6 billion years ago. It is believed that these giants are capable of uniting galaxies, but due to the expansion of the Universe they should move away from each other. But, contrary to all the rules, these objects are moving towards each other. The speed of movement is 200 kilometers per second. It is estimated that in 2-3 billion years Andromeda will collide with the Milky Way.

Astronomer J. Dubinsky created a model of the collision shown in this video:

The collision will not lead to a catastrophe on a global scale. And after several billion years, a new system will be formed, with the usual galactic forms.

Lost galaxies

Scientists conducted a large-scale study of the starry sky, covering approximately an eighth of it. As a result of an analysis of the star systems of the Milky Way galaxy, it was possible to find out that there are previously unknown streams of stars on the outskirts of our universe. This is all that remains of small galaxies that were once destroyed by gravity.

The telescope installed in Chile took a huge number of images that allowed scientists to assess the sky. The images estimate that our galaxy is surrounded by a halo of dark matter, thin gas and few stars, remnants of dwarf galaxies that were once swallowed up by the Milky Way. Having a sufficient amount of data, scientists were able to assemble a “skeleton” of dead galaxies. It’s like in paleontology - it’s difficult to say from a few bones what a creature looked like, but with enough data, you can assemble a skeleton and guess what the lizard was like. So it is here: the information content of the images made it possible to recreate eleven galaxies that were swallowed up by the Milky Way.

Scientists are confident that as they observe and evaluate the information they receive, they will be able to find several more new disintegrated galaxies that were “eaten” by the Milky Way.

We're under fire

According to scientists, the hypervelocity stars located in our galaxy did not originate in it, but in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Theorists cannot explain many aspects regarding the existence of such stars. For example, it is impossible to say exactly why a large number of hypervelocity stars are concentrated in Sextant and Leo. Having revised the theory, scientists came to the conclusion that such a speed can only develop due to the influence of a black hole located in the center of the Milky Way.

Recently, more and more stars have been discovered that do not move from the center of our galaxy. After analyzing the trajectory of ultra-fast stars, scientists were able to find out that we are under attack by the Large Magellanic Cloud.

Death of the planet

By observing the planets in our galaxy, scientists were able to see how the planet died. She was consumed by the aging star. During the expansion and transformation into a red giant, the star absorbed its planet. And another planet in the same system changed its orbit. Having seen this and assessed the state of our Sun, scientists came to the conclusion that the same thing would happen to our luminary. In about five million years it will become a red giant.

How the galaxy works

Our Milky Way has several arms that rotate in a spiral. The center of the entire disk is a gigantic black hole.

We can see the galactic arms in the night sky. They look like white stripes, reminiscent of a milk road that is strewn with stars. These are the branches of the Milky Way. They are best seen in clear weather in the warm season, when there is the most cosmic dust and gases.

The following arms are distinguished in our galaxy:

1. Angle branch.
2. Orion. Our solar system is located in this arm. This sleeve is our “room” in the “house”.
3. Carina-Sagittarius sleeve.
4. Perseus branch.
5. Branch of the Shield of the Southern Cross.

It also contains a core, a gas ring, and dark matter. It supplies about 90% of the entire galaxy, and the remaining ten are visible objects.

Our Solar System, the Earth and other planets are a single whole of a huge gravitational system that can be seen every night in a clear sky. In our “home” a variety of processes are constantly taking place: stars are born, they decay, we are bombarded by other galaxies, dust and gases appear, stars change and go out, others flare up, they dance around... And all this happens somewhere out there, far away in a universe about which we know so little. Who knows, maybe the time will come when people will be able to reach other branches and planets of our galaxy in a matter of minutes, and travel to other universes.

The cosmos that we are trying to study is a huge and endless space in which there are tens, hundreds, thousands of trillions of stars, united in certain groups. Our Earth does not live on its own. We are part of the solar system, which is a small particle and part of the Milky Way, a larger cosmic formation.

Our Earth, like the other planets of the Milky Way, our star called the Sun, like other stars of the Milky Way, move in the Universe in a certain order and occupy designated places. Let's try to understand in more detail what is the structure of the Milky Way, and what are the main features of our galaxy?

Origin of the Milky Way

Our galaxy has its own history, like other areas of outer space, and is the product of a catastrophe on a universal scale. The main theory of the origin of the Universe that dominates the scientific community today is the Big Bang. A model that perfectly characterizes the Big Bang theory is a nuclear chain reaction at the microscopic level. Initially, there was some kind of substance that, for certain reasons, instantly began to move and exploded. There is no need to talk about the conditions that led to the onset of the explosive reaction. This is far from our understanding. Now the Universe, formed 15 billion years ago as a result of a cataclysm, is a huge, endless polygon.

The primary products of the explosion initially consisted of accumulations and clouds of gas. Subsequently, under the influence of gravitational forces and other physical processes, the formation of larger objects on a universal scale occurred. Everything happened very quickly by cosmic standards, over billions of years. First there was the formation of stars, which formed clusters and later merged into galaxies, the exact number of which is unknown. In its composition, galactic matter is atoms of hydrogen and helium in the company of other elements, which are the building material for the formation of stars and other space objects.

It is not possible to say exactly where in the Universe the Milky Way is located, since the exact center of the universe is unknown.

Due to the similarity of the processes that formed the Universe, our galaxy is very similar in structure to many others. By its type, it is a typical spiral galaxy, a type of object that is widespread in the Universe. In terms of its size, the galaxy is in the golden mean - neither small nor huge. Our galaxy has many more smaller stellar neighbors than those of colossal size.

The age of all galaxies that exist in outer space is also the same. Our galaxy is almost the same age as the Universe and is 14.5 billion years old. Over this enormous period of time, the structure of the Milky Way has changed several times, and this is still happening today, only imperceptibly, in comparison with the pace of earthly life.

There is a curious story about the name of our galaxy. Scientists believe that the name Milky Way is legendary. This is an attempt to connect the location of the stars in our sky with the ancient Greek myth about the father of the gods Kronos, who devoured his own children. The last child, who faced the same sad fate, turned out to be thin and was given to a nurse to be fattened. During feeding, splashes of milk fell on the sky, thereby creating a milk trail. Subsequently, scientists and astronomers of all times and peoples agreed that our galaxy is indeed very similar to a milk road.

The Milky Way is currently in the middle of its development cycle. In other words, the cosmic gas and material to form new stars is running out. The existing stars are still quite young. As in the story with the Sun, which may turn into a Red Giant in 6-7 billion years, our descendants will observe the transformation of other stars and the entire galaxy as a whole into the red sequence.

Our galaxy may cease to exist as a result of another universal cataclysm. The topics of research in recent years are focused on the upcoming meeting of the Milky Way with our closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, in the distant future. It is likely that the Milky Way will break up into several small galaxies after meeting the Andromeda Galaxy. In any case, this will be the reason for the emergence of new stars and the reconstruction of the space closest to us. We can only guess what the fate of the Universe and our galaxy will be in the distant future.

Astrophysical parameters of the Milky Way

In order to imagine what the Milky Way looks like on a cosmic scale, it is enough to look at the Universe itself and compare its individual parts. Our galaxy is part of a subgroup, which in turn is part of the Local Group, a larger formation. Here our cosmic metropolis neighbors the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. The trio is surrounded by more than 40 small galaxies. The local group is already part of an even larger formation and is part of the Virgo supercluster. Some argue that these are only rough guesses about where our galaxy is located. The scale of the formations is so enormous that it is almost impossible to imagine it all. Today we know the distance to the nearest neighboring galaxies. Other deep space objects are out of sight. Their existence is only theoretically and mathematically allowed.

The location of the galaxy became known only thanks to approximate calculations that determined the distance to its nearest neighbors. The Milky Way's satellites are dwarf galaxies - the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. In total, according to scientists, there are up to 14 satellite galaxies that form the escort of the universal chariot called the Milky Way.

As for the visible world, today there is enough information about what our galaxy looks like. The existing model, and with it the map of the Milky Way, is compiled on the basis of mathematical calculations, data obtained as a result of astrophysical observations. Each cosmic body or fragment of the galaxy takes its place. This is just like in the Universe, only on a smaller scale. The astrophysical parameters of our cosmic metropolis are interesting, and they are impressive.

Our galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy, which is designated on star maps by the SBbc index. The diameter of the galactic disk of the Milky Way is about 50-90 thousand light years or 30 thousand parsecs. For comparison, the radius of the Andromeda galaxy is 110 thousand light years on the scale of the Universe. One can only imagine how much larger our neighbor is than the Milky Way. The sizes of the dwarf galaxies closest to the Milky Way are tens of times smaller than those of our galaxy. Magellanic clouds have a diameter of only 7-10 thousand light years. There are about 200-400 billion stars in this huge stellar cycle. These stars are collected in clusters and nebulae. A significant part of it is the arms of the Milky Way, in one of which our solar system is located.

Everything else is dark matter, clouds of cosmic gas and bubbles that fill interstellar space. The closer to the center of the galaxy, the more stars there are, the more crowded outer space becomes. Our Sun is located in a region of space consisting of smaller space objects located at a considerable distance from each other.

The mass of the Milky Way is 6x1042 kg, which is trillions of times more than the mass of our Sun. Almost all the stars inhabiting our stellar country are located in the plane of one disk, the thickness of which, according to various estimates, is 1000 light years. It is not possible to know the exact mass of our galaxy, since most of the visible spectrum of stars is hidden from us by the arms of the Milky Way. In addition, the mass of dark matter, which occupies vast interstellar spaces, is unknown.

The distance from the Sun to the center of our galaxy is 27 thousand light years. Being on the relative periphery, the Sun rapidly moves around the center of the galaxy, completing a full revolution every 240 million years.

The center of the galaxy has a diameter of 1000 parsecs and consists of a core with an interesting sequence. The center of the core has the shape of a bulge, in which the largest stars and a cluster of hot gases are concentrated. It is this region that releases a huge amount of energy, which in total is greater than that emitted by the billions of stars that make up the galaxy. This part of the core is the most active and brightest part of the galaxy. At the edges of the core there is a bridge, which is the beginning of the arms of our galaxy. Such a bridge arises as a result of the colossal gravitational force caused by the rapid speed of rotation of the galaxy itself.

Considering the central part of the galaxy, the following fact appears paradoxical. Scientists for a long time could not understand what is in the center of the Milky Way. It turns out that in the very center of a starry country called the Milky Way there is a supermassive black hole, the diameter of which is about 140 km. It is there that most of the energy released by the galactic core goes; it is in this bottomless abyss that stars dissolve and die. The presence of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way indicates that all processes of formation in the Universe must end someday. Matter will turn into antimatter and everything will happen again. How this monster will behave in millions and billions of years, the black abyss is silent, which indicates that the processes of absorption of matter are only gaining strength.

The two main arms of the galaxy extend from the center - the Shield of the Centaur and the Shield of Perseus. These structural formations received their names from the constellations located in the sky. In addition to the main arms, the galaxy is surrounded by 5 more minor arms.

Near and distant future

The arms, born from the core of the Milky Way, unwind in a spiral, filling outer space with stars and cosmic material. An analogy with cosmic bodies that revolve around the Sun in our star system is appropriate here. A huge mass of stars, large and small, clusters and nebulae, cosmic objects of various sizes and natures, spins on a giant carousel. All of them create a wonderful picture of the starry sky, which people have been looking at for thousands of years. When studying our galaxy, you should know that the stars in the galaxy live according to their own laws, being today in one of the arms of the galaxy, tomorrow they will begin their journey in the other direction, leaving one arm and flying to another.

Earth in the Milky Way galaxy is far from the only planet suitable for life. This is just a particle of dust, the size of an atom, which is lost in the vast star world of our galaxy. There can be a huge number of such Earth-like planets in the galaxy. It is enough to imagine the number of stars that in one way or another have their own stellar planetary systems. Other life may be far away, at the very edge of the galaxy, tens of thousands of light years away, or, conversely, present in neighboring areas that are hidden from us by the arms of the Milky Way.