Can You Believe It? #47 The Size Of The Miky Way Galaxy
Michel van Biezen・2 minutes read
The Milky Way galaxy is vast, with a diameter of about 100,000 light years and containing a quarter of a trillion stars. Voyager One, traveling at 38,000 miles per hour, would take 1.8 billion years to cross the galaxy, highlighting the immense scale of our universe.
Insights
- The Milky Way galaxy is a massive structure containing a central bulge with dense stars, spiral arms, and a supermassive black hole at its center, with our solar system situated in one of these spiral arms.
- The immense scale of the Milky Way galaxy, spanning about 100,000 light years and hosting a quarter of a trillion stars akin to the sun, highlights the staggering distances involved in cosmic measurements, such as the time it would take to traverse the galaxy at the speed of light or the vastness of the universe with its countless galaxies.
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Recent questions
What is the Milky Way galaxy?
A galaxy with spiral arms and a central bulge.
How far is the Andromeda galaxy?
2.2 million light years away.
What is a light year?
Distance light travels in a year.
How long would it take to cross the Milky Way at the speed of light?
100,000 years.
How long would it take Voyager One to cross the Milky Way?
1.8 billion years.
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Summary
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"Milky Way Galaxy: Vast and Mysterious"
- The Milky Way galaxy is part of the universe and contains a central bulge with dense stars and spiral arms in a pancake-shaped region. Our solar system is located in one of these spiral arms, 28,000 light years away from the galaxy's center, which houses a massive black hole.
- The Milky Way galaxy has a diameter of about 100,000 light years and holds around a quarter of a trillion stars similar to the sun. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, which is roughly 31,500,000 seconds at a speed of 186,000 miles per second.
- If you could travel at the speed of light, it would take 100,000 years to cross the Milky Way galaxy from end to end. The Andromeda galaxy, our neighbor, is 2.2 million light years away, and if it disappeared, it would take 2.2 million years for us to realize it.
- Voyager One, traveling at 38,000 miles per hour, would take 1.8 billion years to cross the Milky Way galaxy. The vastness of our galaxy and the universe, with hundreds of billions of galaxies, is truly unimaginable.
