The Milky Way
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The Milky Way
The Milky way is a Galaxy. It is the Galaxy that our
Solar System is in. Scientists believe it has been
around for a long time and is amazing! There is so
much to learn about it and even scientists still have
so much to learn…Here are some of the things we
have already learnt….
The Milky Way is exceptionally old and is
believed to be one of the oldest Galaxies in
the Universe. From an age of around 13.51
billion years old it has grown quite a bit. We
have only been around for 200,000 years we
seem young in comparison. Our Solar
System also makes us seem young at 4.571
billion years old but still younger than the
Milky Way.
Our Galaxy is humungous and has many
different parts to it (like our Solar system).
In radius it is about 52,850 light years and
the diameter is about 100-200,000 light
years long, which is longer than anything we
could imagine. It has many different
planetary systems that orbit different stars
within it.
The Milky Way is not just made of bits
of floating rock it is also made of other
things: 90% dark matter and 10%
luminous matter. Most luminous matter
is stars (like our sun), and dark matter is
the void surrounding everything.
How did the Milky way form?
It formed when star clusters merged,
forming the galaxy’s core. Then the same
happened to create the many
Solar/Planetary systems inside the galaxy,
to create the planets (like Earth) the same
thing happened but with many rocks forming
together.
There are many planets in galaxies; and
the Milky Way is no exception. There are
100-400 Billion planets and 40 billion of
those are thought to be habitable (like
our planet Earth). There are also many
solar systems. Like planets there are
many in galaxies but what is different is
the numbers, there over 500 of them,
and 100 billion max.
A star is a burning piece of gas. Our
sun is a star and so are all suns. There
are many stars in the Universe. In our
Galaxy (The Milky Way) there are over
250 billion of them, that number
increases by roughly 7 every year. So,
in the next one billion years there will
be at most 257 billion stars.
You might be wondering where we are
in our galaxy (The Milky Way).
We are 26,000 light years from the
middle of the Galaxy, on the inner
edge of the Orion-Cygnus Arm. It’s
sandwiched between two primary
spiral arms, the Sagittarius and
Perseus Arms.
Left over rocket parts floating in space are
called space rubbish and that means we’re
littering space as well as earth (which is bad).
Over 34,000 pieces of space rubbish float in
our Galaxy making us seem bad. Some
space rubbish will end up on other planets
which means we are littering other planets as
well as our own. SpaceX is stopping some of
that though by sending up reusable rockets
like Falcon 9.
The Hubble telescope has taken many breath-taking
pictures of the Milky Way, other solar systems, and
other Galaxies. The Hubble telescope will take many
other pictures than ones that have been uploaded on
the internet. Hubble sits on top of a satellite taking
pictures of the Milky Way. It was launched up into
space on the 24th of April 1990. The Hubble telescope
takes pictures using a digital camera in black and
white. Because of the Hubble telescope scientists
think that the Universe is almost 14 billion years old.
In March next year Hubble will be replaced by NASA’s
James Webb Space Telescope.
This is a
simulation of
the formation
of the Milky
Way galaxy
taken from
youtube
https://www.you
tube.com/watch
?v=s-25dEcY-
WU
I loved researching this and it was
a joy making it for you. I learnt lots
and I hope you did to reading it. I
hope this encourages you to
explore and learn more about
space.
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