The Milky Way Galaxy is very majestic, beautiful. This huge world is our homeland, 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 at a distance of 27,000 light years from the center of the galaxy, in one of the arms, which is called the Orion arm.

Our solar system revolves around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. This happens in the same way that the Earth revolves around the Sun. The solar system makes a complete revolution in 200 million years.

Deformation

The Milky Way galaxy looks like a disk with a bulge in the center. It's not in perfect shape. On one side there is a bend to the north of the center of the galaxy, and on the other it goes down, then turns to the right. Outwardly, such a deformation is somewhat reminiscent of a wave. The disk itself is warped. 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 referred to as 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 are like a tug of war between galaxies, creating vibrations. The result is a deformation of the Milky Way galaxy. The structure of our galaxy is special, it has a halo.

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

Halo

Wondering what kind of galaxy the Milky Way is, scientists began to study it. They managed to find out that for 90% of its mass it consists of dark matter, which causes a mysterious halo. Everything that is visible to the naked eye from the Earth, namely that luminous matter, is about 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 the experiments, the opinion was put forward that if there were no halo, then the speed of the planets and other elements of the Milky Way would be less than now. Because of this feature, it was suggested that most of the components consist of an invisible mass or dark matter.

Number of stars

One of the most unique is the Milky Way galaxy. The structure of our galaxy is unusual, it has more than 400 billion stars. 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 very different stars, and only a small part, about 3000, is visible from the Earth. It is impossible to say exactly how many stars are in the Milky Way, because how the galaxy is constantly losing objects due to their transformation into supernovae.

Gases and dust

Approximately 15% of the component galaxy - dust and gases. Maybe because of them our galaxy is called the Milky Way? Despite its huge size, we can see about 6,000 light-years ahead, but the size of the galaxy is 120,000 light-years. Maybe it is more, but even the most powerful telescopes cannot see beyond this. 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 it, and scientists can create maps of the starry sky.

What was before

According to scientists, our galaxy has not always been like this. The Milky Way was created from the merger of several other galaxies. This giant captured other planets, areas, which had a strong influence 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 pass to other galaxies, for example, there is an exchange of objects with the Sagittarius galaxy.

view of the milky way

No scientist, astronomer can say for sure what our Milky Way looks like from above. This is due to the fact that the Earth is located in the Milky Way galaxy, 26,000 light-years from the center. Due to this location, it is not possible to take pictures of the entire Milky Way. Therefore, any image of a galaxy is either a snapshot of other visible galaxies, or someone else's fantasy. And we can only guess what it actually looks like. There is even a possibility that we now know as much about it as the ancient people who considered 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 the very heart. According to assumptions, its dimensions are a little more than 22 million kilometers, and this is the hole itself.

All the matter that tries to get into the hole forms a huge disk, almost 5 million times the size of our Sun. But even such a pulling force does not prevent new stars from forming at the edge of a black hole.

Age

According to estimates of the composition of the Milky Way galaxy, it was possible to establish an estimated age - 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 did it begin to look like 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 nearest 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 covering a huge area. And this is only a small part of the stellar neighborhood.

The Virgo Supercluster contains more than a hundred groups of clusters over 110 million light-years across. 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 complete revolution in 1 year. Our Sun revolves in the Milky Way around the center of the galaxy. Our galaxy is moving in relation to a special radiation. CMB radiation is a convenient reference point that allows you to determine the speed of various matters in the Universe. Studies have shown that our galaxy rotates at a speed of 600 kilometers per second.

Name appearance

The galaxy got its name because of its special appearance, reminiscent of spilled milk in the night sky. The name was given to her in ancient Rome. Then it was called "the road of milk." Until now, it is called that - the Milky Way, associating the name with the appearance of a white stripe in the night sky, with spilled milk.

Mentions have been found about the galaxy since the era of Aristotle, who said that the Milky Way is a place where the celestial spheres are in contact with the earthly ones. Until the moment when the telescope was created, no one added anything to this opinion. And only since the seventeenth century people began to look at the world differently.

Our neighbours

For some reason, many people think that the closest galaxy to the Milky Way is Andromeda. But this opinion is not entirely correct. The closest "neighbor" to us is the Canis Major galaxy, located inside the Milky Way. It is located at a distance of 25,000 light years from us, and from the center - 42,000 light years. 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 a huge density of class M were discovered in Pse.

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

Collision of galaxies

Recently, there is more and more information that the nearest 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 able to unite galaxies, and due to the expansion of the Universe, they must move away from each other. But, contrary to all the rules, these objects move 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 the collision model shown in this video:

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

Dead galaxies

Scientists conducted a large-scale study of the starry sky, covering about an eighth of it. As a result of the 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.

A telescope installed in Chile took a huge number of images that allowed scientists to assess the sky. Surrounding our galaxy, according to the images, are halos of dark matter, rarefied gas and few stars, remnants of dwarf galaxies that were once swallowed up by the Milky Way. With enough data, scientists managed to collect the "skeleton" of the dead galaxies. It's like in paleontology - it's hard to tell from a few bones what the creature looked like, but with enough data, you can assemble the 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 decayed galaxies that were “eaten” by the Milky Way.

We're under fire

According to scientists, the hypervelocity stars in our galaxy did not originate in it, but in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Theorists cannot explain many points 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. Revising the theory, scientists came to the conclusion that such a speed can only develop due to the impact on them of a black hole located in the center of the Milky Way.

Recently, more and more stars are being discovered that do not move from the center of our galaxy. After analyzing the trajectory of ultrafast stars, scientists managed to find out that we are under attack from the Large Magellanic Cloud.

The death of the planet

By observing the planets in our galaxy, scientists were able to see how the planet died. She was consumed by an aging star. During the expansion and transformation into a red giant, the star swallowed up its planet. And another planet in the same system changed its orbit. Seeing this and assessing the state of our Sun, scientists came to the conclusion that the same thing will happen to our luminary. In about five million years, it will turn into 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 galactic arms in the night sky. They look like white stripes, reminiscent of a milky road that is strewn with stars. These are the branches of the Milky Way. They are best seen in clear weather during the warm season, when there is the most cosmic dust and gases.

Our galaxy has the following arms:

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

Also in the composition there is a core, a gas ring, 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. A variety of processes are constantly taking place in our “house”: stars are born, decay, other galaxies are shelling us, dust, gases appear, stars change and go out, others flare up, they dance around ... And all this happens somewhere 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 arms and planets of our galaxy in a matter of minutes, travel to other universes.

We live in a galaxy called the Milky Way. Our planet Earth is only a grain of sand in the Milky Way galaxy. In the course of filling the site every now and then, moments appear that it would seem that it was necessary to write about a long time ago, but then they forgot, then they didn’t have time or switched to something else. Today we will try to fill one of these niches. Today our topic is the Milky Way galaxy..

Once people thought that the center of the World is the Earth. Over time, this opinion was recognized as erroneous and began to be considered the center of the entire Sun. But then it turned out that the luminary, which gives life to all life on the blue planet, is by no means the center of outer space, but only a tiny grain of sand in the boundless ocean of stars.

space, galaxy, milky way

The cosmos visible to the human eye includes myriads of stars. All of them are combined into a huge star system, which is called very beautifully and intriguingly - the Milky Way galaxy. From Earth, this celestial splendor is observed in the form of a wide whitish band, dimly glowing on the celestial sphere.

It stretches across the entire northern hemisphere and crosses the constellations of Gemini, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Chanterelle, Cygnus, Taurus, Eagle, Arrow, Cepheus. Encircles the southern hemisphere and passes through the constellations of Unicorn, Southern Cross, Southern Triangle, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Sails, Compasses.

If you arm yourself with a telescope and look through it at the night sky, then the picture will be different. A wide whitish stripe will turn into countless luminous stars. Their faint distant alluring light will tell without words about the greatness and boundless expanses of the Cosmos, will make you hold your breath and realize all the insignificance and worthlessness of momentary human problems.

The milky way is called Galaxy or a giant star system. Estimates are currently leaning more and more towards the figure of 400 billion stars in the Milky Way. All these stars move in closed orbits. They are connected to each other by the forces of gravity, and most of them have planets. Stars and planets form stellar systems. Such systems are with one star (solar system), double (Sirius - two stars), triple (alpha Centauri). There are four, five stars, and even seven.

Milky Way in the form of a disk

The structure of the Milky Way

All this countless variety of stellar systems that make up the Milky Way is not scattered across outer space at random, but is combined into a colossal formation that has the shape of a disk with a thickening in the middle. The diameter of the disk is 100,000 light years (one light year corresponds to the distance that light travels in a year, which is about 10¹³ km) or 30,659 parsecs (one parsec is 3.2616 light years). The thickness of the disk is equal to several thousand light-years, and its mass exceeds the mass of the Sun by 3 × 10¹² times.

The mass of the Milky Way is composed of a mass of stars, interstellar gas, dust clouds and a halo, which has the shape of a huge sphere consisting of rarefied hot gas, stars and dark matter. Dark matter is represented as a set of hypothetical space objects, the masses of which make up 95% of the entire Universe. These mysterious objects are invisible and do not react in any way to modern technical means of detection.

The presence of dark matter can only be guessed from its gravitational effect on visible clusters of suns. There are not so many of those available for observation. The human eye, even when amplified by the most powerful telescope, can only see two billion stars. The rest of outer space is hidden by huge impenetrable clouds, consisting of interstellar dust and gas.

Thickening ( bulge) in the central part of the disk of the Milky Way is called the Galactic center or core. In it, billions of old stars move in very elongated orbits. Their mass is very large and is estimated at 10 billion solar masses. The core size is not that impressive. It is 8000 parsecs across.

galactic core is a brightly shining ball. If earthlings could observe it in the sky, then their eyes would see a giant luminous ellipsoid, which in size would be a hundred times larger than the moon. Unfortunately, this most beautiful and magnificent sight is inaccessible to people because of the powerful gas and dust clouds that obscure the galactic center from planet Earth.

At a distance of 3000 parsecs from the center of the Galaxy, there is a gas ring 1500 parsecs wide and with a mass of 100 million solar masses. It is here, as expected, that the central region of the formation of new stars is located. Gas sleeves about 4 thousand parsecs long scatter from it. At the very center of the nucleus is black hole, with a mass of more than three million suns.

galactic disk structurally heterogeneous. It has separate high-density zones, which are spiral arms. In them, the continuous process of the formation of new stars continues, and the arms themselves stretch along the core and, as it were, go around it in a semicircle. There are currently five of them. These are the Cygnus arm, the Perseus arm, the Centaurus arm and the Sagittarius arm. In the fifth sleeve - arm of Orion- The solar system is located.

Please note - this is a spiral structure. Increasingly, people notice this structure literally everywhere. Many will be surprised, but the flight path of our Earth with you also there is a spiral!

It is separated from the galactic core by 28,000 light years. Around the center of the Galaxy, the Sun with its planets rushes at a speed of 220 km / s, and makes a complete revolution in 220 million years. True, there is another figure - 250 million years.

The solar system is located just below the galactic equator, and in its orbit it does not move smoothly and calmly, but as if bouncing. Once every 33 million years, it crosses the galactic equator and rises above it at a distance of 230 light years. Then it descends back to repeat its rise through the next interval of 33 million years.

The galactic disk rotates, but it does not rotate as a single body. The nucleus rotates faster, the spiral arms in the disk plane are slower. Naturally, a logical question arises: why the spiral arms do not twist around the center of the Galaxy, but always remain the same shape and configuration for already 12 billion years (the age of the Milky Way is estimated at such a figure).

There is a theory that quite plausibly explains this phenomenon. She considers spiral arms not as material objects, but as matter density waves arising against the galactic background. This is caused by star formation and the birth of high luminosity stars. In other words, the rotation of the spiral arms has nothing to do with the motion of stars in their galactic orbits.

The latter, only, pass through the arms either ahead of them in speed, if they are closer to the Galactic center, or behind, if they are located in the peripheral regions of the Milky Way. The outlines of these spiral waves are given by the brightest stars, which have a very short life and manage to live it without leaving the sleeve.

As can be seen from all of the above, the Milky Way is the most complex space formation, but it is not limited to the surface of the disk. Around there is a huge cloud of spherical shape ( halo). It consists of: rarefied hot gases, individual stars, globular star clusters, dwarf galaxies and dark matter. There are dense clouds of gas on the outskirts of the Milky Way. Their length is several thousand light years, the temperature reaches 10,000 degrees, and the mass is equal to at least ten million suns.

Neighbors of the Milky Way Galaxy

In the boundless Cosmos, the Milky Way is far from alone. At a distance of 772 thousand parsecs from it is an even larger star system. It's called Andromeda Galaxy(maybe more romantic - Andromeda Nebula). It has been known since ancient times as "a small celestial cloud, easily visible in the dark night." As early as the beginning of the 17th century, religious astronomers believed that "in this place the crystal firmament is thinner than usual, and the light of the kingdom of heaven pours through it."

The Andromeda Nebula is the only galaxy that can be seen in the sky with the naked eye. It is seen as a small oval luminous spot. The light in it is unevenly distributed: the central part is brighter. If you strengthen the eye with a telescope, then the speck will turn into a giant star system, the diameter of which is 150 thousand light years. This is one and a half times the diameter of the Milky Way.

dangerous neighbor

But Andromeda does not differ in size from the galaxy in which the solar system exists. Back in 1991, the planetary camera of the Space Telescope. Hubble recorded that it had two nuclei. Moreover, one of them is smaller and revolves around another, larger and brighter, gradually collapsing under the influence of the tidal forces of the latter. This slow agony of one of the cores suggests that it is the remnant of some other galaxy, swallowed up by Andromeda.

For many, it will be an unpleasant surprise to learn that the Andromeda Nebula is moving towards the Milky Way, and, therefore, towards the Solar System. The approach speed is about 140 km/s. Accordingly, the meeting of the two stellar giants will take place somewhere in 2.5-3 billion years. It will not be a meeting on the Elbe, but it will not be a global catastrophe on a cosmic scale either..

Two galaxies will simply merge into one. But which one will dominate - here the scales are tilted in favor of Andromeda. It has more mass, besides, it already has experience of absorbing other galactic systems.

As for the solar system, then the forecasts vary. The most pessimistic one indicates that the Sun with all the planets will simply be thrown into intergalactic space, that is, it will not find a place in the new formation.

But maybe that's for the best. After all, everything shows that the Andromeda Galaxy is a kind of bloodthirsty monster devouring its own kind. Having swallowed the Milky Way and destroyed its core, the Nebula will turn into a huge Nebula and continue its journey through the expanses of the Universe, eating more and more new galaxies. The end result of this journey will be the collapse of an incredibly swollen, super-giant star system.

The Andromeda Nebula will disintegrate into countless small stellar formations, exactly repeating the fate of the huge empires of human civilization, which first grew to unprecedented proportions, and then collapsed with a roar, unable to withstand the burden of their own greed, self-interest and lust for power.

But do not bother with the events of future tragedies. It is better to consider another galaxy, which is called Triangulum Galaxies. It is spread out in the expanses of the Universe at a distance of 730 thousand parsecs from the Milky Way and is two times smaller in size than the latter, and at least seven times smaller in mass. That is, this is an ordinary mediocre galaxy, of which there are a great many in space.

All these three star systems, coupled with a few dozen more dwarf galaxies, are part of the so-called Local Group, which is part of Virgo Superclusters- a huge stellar formation, the size of which is 200 million light years.

The Milky Way, the Andromeda Nebula and the Triangulum Galaxy have a lot in common. All of them belong to the so-called spiral galaxies. Their disks are flat and consist of young stars, open star clusters, and interstellar matter. In the center of each disk there is a thickening (bulge). The main feature, of course, is the presence of bright spiral arms containing many young and hot stars.

The cores of these galaxies are also similar to the cluster of old stars and gas rings in which new stars are born. An invariable attribute of the central part of each nucleus is the presence of a black hole with a very large mass. It has already been mentioned that the mass of the black hole of the Milky Way corresponds to more than three million masses of the Sun.

Black holes- one of the most impenetrable mysteries of the universe. Of course, they are watched, they are studied, but these mysterious formations are in no hurry to reveal their secrets. It is known that black holes have a very high density, and their gravitational field is so powerful that even light cannot escape from them.

But any space body that is in the zone of influence of one of them ( event threshold) will be immediately "swallowed" by this terrible universal monster. What will be the fate of the "unfortunate" - is unknown. In a word, it is easy to get into a black hole, but it is impossible to get out of it.

A lot of black holes are scattered across the expanses of the Cosmos, some of them have a mass many times greater than the mass of a black hole in the center of the Milky Way. But this does not at all mean that the monster “native” to the solar system is more harmless than its larger counterparts. It is also voracious and bloodthirsty, and is a compact (12.5 light-hours in diameter) and powerful source of X-rays.

The name of this mysterious object Sagittarius A. Its mass has already been named - more than 3 million masses of the Sun, and the gravitational trap (threshold of events) of the baby is measured at 68 astronomical units (1 AU is equal to the average distance of the Earth from the Sun). It is within these limits that the border of his bloodthirstiness and deceit lies in relation to various cosmic bodies, which, for a number of reasons, frivolously cross it.

Someone probably naively thinks that the baby is content with random victims - nothing like that: he has a constant source of nutrition. This is an S2 star. It revolves around the black hole in a very compact orbit - a complete revolution is only 15.6 years. The maximum distance of S2 from the terrible monster lies within 5 light days, and the minimum is only 17 light hours.

Under the influence of the tidal forces of a black hole, part of its substance is torn off from a star doomed to be slaughtered and flies with great speed towards this terrible cosmic monster. As it approaches, the substance passes into a state of incandescent plasma and, radiating a farewell bright radiance, disappears forever in an insatiable invisible abyss.

But that's not all: the insidiousness of a black hole has no limits. Next to it there is another, less massive and dense black hole. Its task is to adjust the stars, planets, interstellar dust and gas clouds to its more powerful counterpart. All this also turns into plasma, emits bright light and disappears into nowhere.

However, not all scientists, despite such a convincing bloody interpretation of events, are of the opinion that black holes exist. Some argue that this is an unknown mass, driven under a cold dense shell. It has a huge density and bursts from within the surface compressing it with incredible force. Such education is called gravastar is a gravitational star.

Under this model, they try to fit the entire Universe, thus explaining its expansion. Proponents of this concept argue that outer space is a giant bubble inflated by an unknown force. That is, the entire Cosmos is a huge gravastor, in which smaller models of gravastors coexist, periodically absorbing individual stars and other formations.

The absorbed bodies are, as it were, thrown into other outer spaces, which are essentially invisible, since they do not release light from under an absolutely black shell. Maybe gravastors are other dimensions or parallel worlds? A concrete answer to this question will not be found for a very, very long time.

But not only the presence or absence of black holes occupies the minds of space explorers. Much more interesting and exciting are reflections on the existence of intelligent life in other star systems of the Universe.

The Sun that gives life to earthlings rotates among many other suns in the Milky Way. Its disk is visible from the Earth in the form of a pale shining band encircling the celestial sphere. These are distant billions and billions of stars, many of which have their own planetary systems. Is there really not at least one among the countless number of these planets on which intelligent beings live - brothers in mind?

The most reasonable assumption is that Earth-like life can arise on a planet that revolves around a star of the same class as the Sun. There is such a star in the sky, moreover, it is located in the star system closest to the earth's body. This is Alpha Centauri A, located in the constellation Centaurus. From the ground, it is visible to the naked eye, and its distance from the Sun is 4.36 light years.

It would be nice, of course, to have reasonable neighbors right next to you. But the desired does not always coincide with the actual. Finding signs of an extraterrestrial civilization, even at a distance of some 4-6 light years, is a rather difficult task with the current advances in technology. Therefore, it is premature to talk about the existence of any mind in the constellation Centaurus.

Nowadays, it is only possible to send radio signals into space, hoping that someone unknown will respond to the call of human intelligence. The most powerful radio stations in the world have been persistently and non-stop engaged in such activities since the first half of the 20th century. As a result, the level of radio emission of the Earth has increased significantly. The blue planet began to differ sharply in its radiation background from all other planets in the solar system.

Signals from Earth cover outer space with a radius of at least 90 light years. On the scale of the universe, this is a drop in the ocean, but as you know, this smallness wears away a stone. If somewhere far, far away in the Cosmos there is a highly developed intelligent life, then, in any case, it must sometime turn its attention to the increased radiation background in the depths of the Milky Way galaxy, and to the radio signals coming from there. Such an interesting phenomenon cannot leave indifferent the inquisitive minds of aliens.

Accordingly, an active search for signals from the Cosmos has been established. But the dark abyss is silent, which indicates that within the Milky Way there are most likely no intelligent beings ready to make contact with the inhabitants of planet Earth, or their technical development is at a very primitive level. True, another thought arises, which suggests that a highly developed civilization, or civilizations, exists, but sends some other signals to the expanses of the Galaxy, which cannot be caught by terrestrial technical means.

Progress on the blue planet is steadily developing and improving. Scientists are developing new, completely different ways of transmitting information over long distances. All this can have a positive effect. But we must not forget that the expanses of the universe are limitless. There are stars whose light reaches the Earth after billions of years. In fact, a person sees a picture of the distant past when he observes such a space object through a telescope.

It may turn out that the signal received by earthlings from space will turn out to be the voice of a long-disappeared extraterrestrial civilization that lived at a time when neither the solar system nor the Milky Way existed yet. The response message from the Earth will get to the aliens, who were not even in the project at the time when it was sent.

Well, we must take into account the laws of harsh reality. In any case, the search for intelligence in distant galactic worlds cannot be stopped. Unlucky current generations, lucky future ones. Hope in this case will never die, and perseverance and perseverance will undoubtedly pay off handsomely.

But it seems quite real and close to the development of galactic space. Already in the next century, fast and elegant spaceships will fly to the nearest constellations. The astronauts on their sides will observe through the windows not the planet Earth, but the entire solar system. She will be seen by them in the form of a distant, bright star. But it will not be the cold soulless brilliance of one of the countless suns of the Galaxy, but the native radiance of the Sun, near which mother earth will rotate as an invisible, soul-warming speck.

Very soon, the dreams of science fiction writers, reflected in their works, will become an ordinary everyday reality, and a walk along the Milky Way is a rather boring and tedious task, like, for example, a trip in a subway car from one end of Moscow to another.

Milky Way- a galaxy that is the most important for man, because it is his home. But when it comes to exploration, our galaxy becomes an unremarkable average spiral galaxy, like the billions of other galaxies scattered throughout the universe.

Looking up at the night sky, outside the city light, one can clearly see a wide bright band running across the sky. The ancient inhabitants of the Earth called this bright object, which was formed long before the formation of the Earth - a river, a road and other names similar in meaning. In reality, this is nothing more than the center of our galaxy, visible from one of its arms.

The structure of the Milky Way galaxy

The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy about 100,000 light-years across. If we were to look down on it, we could see a central bulge surrounded by four large spiral arms that wrap around the central region. Spiral galaxies are the most common and make up about two-thirds of all galaxies known to mankind.

Unlike an ordinary spiral, a barred spiral galaxy contains a kind of "bridge" running through its central region and two main spirals. In addition, there are a couple of sleeves in the inner part, which, at a certain distance, turn into a four-arm structure. In one of the small arms known as the arm of Orion, which is located between the large arms of Perseus and Sagittarius, our solar system is located.

The Milky Way does not stand still. It constantly revolves around its center. Thus, the sleeves are constantly moving in space. Our solar system, along with the Orion arm, is moving at about 828,000 kilometers per hour. Even moving at such a tremendous speed, the solar system will take about 230 million years to complete one revolution around the Milky Way.

Interesting facts about the Milky Way galaxy

1. The history of the Milky Way galaxy begins shortly after the Big Bang;
2. The Milky Way contains some of the earliest stars in the universe;
3. The Milky Way has annexed other galaxies in the distant past. Our galaxy is currently growing in size by pulling in material from the Magellanic Clouds;
4. The Milky Way moves through space at a speed of 552 kilometers per second;
5. At the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole called Sgr A* with a mass of about 4.3 million solar masses;
6. The stars, gas and dust of the Milky Way move around the center at a speed of about 220 kilometers per second. The constancy of this speed for all stars, regardless of their distance from the core of the galaxy, speaks of the existence of mysterious dark matter;

Curved around the center of the galaxy, the spiral arms contain a large amount of dust and gas, from which new stars are subsequently formed. These arms form what astronomers call the disk of a galaxy. Its thickness compared to the diameter of the galaxy is small and is about 1000 light years.

At the center of the Milky Way is the core of the galaxy. It is filled with dust, gas and stars. The core of the Milky Way is the reason why we only see a small fraction of all the stars in our galaxy. The dust and gas in it is so dense that scientists are simply not able to see what is in the center.

Recent studies by scientists confirm the fact that there is a supergiant black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the mass of which is comparable to that of ~4.3 million solar masses. At the very beginning of history, this supermassive black hole could have been much smaller, but large reserves of dust and gas allowed it to grow to such a huge size.

Although black holes cannot be detected by direct observation, astronomers can see them due to gravitational effects. According to scientists, most galaxies in the universe contain a supermassive black hole at their center.

The central core and spiral arms are not the only constituent elements of the Milky Way spiral galaxy. Our galaxy is surrounded by a spherical halo of hot gas, old stars and globular clusters. Although the halo spans hundreds of thousands of light-years, it contains about 2 percent more stars than those in the galaxy's disk.

Dust, gas and stars are the most "visible" components of our galaxy, but the Milky Way contains another yet elusive component - dark matter. Astronomers cannot yet directly detect it, but they can speak of its presence, as in the case of black holes, through indirect signs. Recent research in this area shows that 90% of the mass of our galaxy is elusive dark matter.

The future of the Milky Way galaxy

The Milky Way not only revolves around itself, but also moves in the Universe. Despite the fact that space is a relatively empty place, dust, gas and other galaxies can be encountered along the way. Our galaxy is also not immune from an accidental encounter with another massive cluster of stars.

In about 4 billion years, the Milky Way will collide with its nearest neighbor, the Andromeda Galaxy. Both galaxies are rushing towards each other at a speed of about 112 km/s. After the collision, both galaxies will provide new influx of stellar material, which will lead to a new wave of star formation.

Fortunately, the inhabitants of the Earth do not worry much about this fact. By that time, our Sun will turn into a red giant and life on our planet will be impossible.

Useful articles that will answer most of the interesting questions about the Milky Way galaxy.

deep sky objects

The Milky Way is part of a giant cluster of stars visible from Earth - our Galaxy, one of hundreds of billions of other similar systems. Together they form the universe.

If you look at the stars on a clear moonless night somewhere far from the city lights, then you can clearly see a bright band crossing the sky - the Milky Way. In fact, this is the light of many stars that make up our galaxy.

Scientific research has proven that what ancient poets called the spilled milk of the goddess Hera and the road to paradise turned out to be part of a huge structure that is visible to us with a diameter of about 100 thousand light years, consisting of billions of stars, interstellar matter, nebulae and other celestial bodies. Our solar system is also part of the Milky Way.

Our star neighbors

In other words, the Milky Way is nothing but our Galaxy, which we look at from the inside and, moreover, “from the edge”. From Earth, you can see more stars in the Milky Way band than outside it. Due to our position on the periphery of the Galaxy, on clear nights we have the opportunity to observe its densest regions.

We live in the solar system, and in addition to our luminary, the Galaxy is inhabited by more than 200 billion other stars. They form a star system with a spiral structure. From the side, it resembles a disk. If one looks from the Earth in a direction perpendicular to the plane of the disk, there will be very few stars in the field of view. The disk itself is visible as a milky-white stripe crossing the sky. When viewed in a direction parallel to the plane of the disk, a huge number of densely packed stars are visible, behind which is a large part of the Galaxy.

To the center of the Galaxy 28,360 light years

It was difficult for astronomers to determine the shape of our Galaxy and the position of its center, since much of the visible radiation from stars on the way to Earth is absorbed by interstellar gas and cosmic dust. Exploring the spheroidal halo surrounding the disk of the Galaxy, astronomers have discovered globular star clusters. Each cluster contains up to several million stars - relics of the era when the disk in the Galaxy has not yet formed. By determining the position of these clusters, scientists were able to calculate where the center of the Galaxy is. It turned out that it is located in the constellation Sagittarius at a distance of 28,360 light years from us.

Halo, sleeves and bulge

Like other spiral galaxies, the Milky Way has a center from which arms spiral out like a fireworks wheel. There is a dense thickening (bulge) in the center of the Galaxy. The galactic nucleus is the most central part of the bulge. The diameter of the bulge is about 20,000 light years, and the thickness of the disk at this point is about 3,200 light years.

Although the core is a very difficult object to study, it is clear that colossal energy is concentrated in it. Therefore, it is of great interest to astrophysicists. Scientists have put forward many hypotheses to describe its structure and evolution. One of them paints a particularly scary picture: the high density of stars in the bulge region can lead to gravitational collapse and the formation of supermassive black holes that will be drawn into the surrounding matter.

In the arms of the Galaxy there are many stars of very different ages: old, very bright and young, and even unborn. Due to the strong gravitational force, the density of matter in the arms is increased. The solar system, of which our tiny planet is also a part, is located in one of these spiral arms - the Orion Arm.

Therefore, the entire galaxy is not visible from Earth. Just as the Earth revolves around the Sun, the Solar System also revolves around the center of the Galaxy in the company of many other stars. All this large, complex structure is only an insignificant part of an even more extensive and complex structure - the Universe.

Variety of galaxies

The successes achieved in the creation of astronomical instruments and instruments have made it possible to study many parts of the sky in detail, including numerous nebulae. Previously, it was completely unknown what they were. It was assumed that these could be globular clusters (dense spherical groups consisting of hundreds of thousands of old stars), remnants of stars, gas clouds, and possibly other galaxies. But with the advent of more advanced telescopes, against the background of millions and millions of stars captured on photographic plates, galaxies began to appear more and more clearly. Now astronomers have learned to determine their size and distance from the Earth.

According to their shape, galaxies are classified into spiral (with arms running in a spiral from the center), barred spiral (with arms extending from the ends of the bar - a highly elongated core), elliptical and irregular (having no definite shape). Each individual galaxy has up to several hundred billion stars. By measuring the distance to galaxies, one can determine the nature of their mutual arrangement in space. It turned out that galaxies form clusters, which in turn combine into superclusters. So-called stellar population types have been identified: population I stars, generally younger, are located in the disk of the galaxy, while older population II stars are found in spheroidal halo and globular clusters.

There are more galaxies in the universe than there are stars in our galaxy. Stars are the basic elements from which they are built. Each galaxy consists of about 100 billion of these "bricks", and hundreds of billions of galaxies, in turn, form the Universe. So the Milky Way is an extremely small part of the vast and complex universe.

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The solar system is located in the Galaxy, sometimes called the Milky Way. Astronomers have agreed to write "our" Galaxy with a capital letter, and other galaxies outside our star system - with a small letter - galaxies.

M31 - Andromeda Nebula

All stars and other objects that we see with the naked eye belong to our Galaxy. The exception is the Andromeda Nebula, which is a close relative and neighbor of our Galaxy. It was by observing this galaxy that Edwin Hubble (after whom the space telescope is named) was able to "resolve" it into individual stars in 1924. After that, all doubts about the physical nature of this and other galaxies, observed in the form of blurry spots - nebulae, disappeared.

Our Galaxy has a size of about 100-120 thousand light years (a light year is the distance that light travels in one Earth year, approximately 9,460,730,472,580 km). Our solar system lies about 27,000 light-years from the center of the galaxy, in one of the spiral arms called the Orion Arm. It has been known since the mid-1980s that our Galaxy has a bar in the center between the spiral arms. Like other stars, the Sun revolves around the center of the Galaxy at a speed of about 240 km / s (other stars have a different speed). For a period of about 200 million years, the Sun and the planets of the solar system make a complete revolution around the center of the galaxy. This explains some of the phenomena in the geological history of the Earth, which during its existence managed to turn around the center of the Galaxy 30 times.

Our Galaxy has the shape of an oblate disk when viewed from the side. However, this disc has an irregular shape. Two satellites of our Galaxy, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (not visible in the northern hemisphere of the Earth), by the action of their gravity, distort the shape of our Galaxy.

We see our Galaxy from the inside, as if we were watching a children's carousel, being on one of the carousel horses. Those stars of the Galaxy that we can observe are located in the form of a strip of unequal width, which we call the Milky Way. The fact that the Milky Way, known since antiquity, consists of many faint stars, was discovered in 1610 by Galileo Galilei, pointing his telescope at the night sky.

Astronomers believe that our Galaxy has a halo that we cannot see ("dark matter"), but which includes 90% of the mass of our Galaxy. The existence of "dark matter" not only in our Galaxy, but also in the Universe follows from theories that use the General Theory of Relativity (GR) of Einstein. However, it is not yet a fact that GR is correct (there are other theories of gravity), so the Galactic halo may have another explanation.

There are 200 to 400 billion stars in our Galaxy. This is not much by the standards of the universe. There are galaxies containing trillions of stars, for example, in the galaxy IC 1101 there are about 300 trillion.

10-15% of the mass of our Galaxy is dust and scattered interstellar gas (mainly hydrogen). Because of the dust, we see our Galaxy in the night sky as the Milky Way in the form of a bright band. If the dust did not absorb light from other stars in the Galaxy, we would see a bright ring of billions of stars, especially bright in the constellation Sagittarius, where the center of the Galaxy is located. However, in other ranges of electromagnetic waves, the core of the Galaxy is perfectly visible, for example, in the radio range (source Sagittarius A), infrared and X-ray.

According to the assumptions of scientists (again, associated with general relativity), there is a "black hole" in the center of our Galaxy (and most other galaxies). It is believed that its mass is approximately 40,000 solar masses. The motion of the substance of the Galaxy towards its center creates that most powerful radiation from the center of the Galaxy, which is observed by astronomers in different ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum.

We cannot see the Galaxy from above or from the side, because we are inside it. All images of our Galaxy from the outside are the imagination of artists. However, we have a fairly good idea of ​​the type and shape of the Galaxy, since we can observe other spiral galaxies in the Universe similar to ours.

The age of the Galaxy is approximately 13.6 billion years, which is not much less than the age of the entire Universe (13.7 billion years) according to scientists. The oldest stars in the galaxy are in globular clusters, and it is by their age that the age of the Galaxy is calculated.

Our Galaxy is part of a larger association of other galaxies, which we call the Local Group of Galaxies, which includes the satellites of the Galaxy Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, the Andromeda Nebula (M 31, NGC 224), the Triangulum Galaxy (M33, NGC 598) and about 50 other galaxies . In turn, the Local Group of galaxies is included in the Virgo Supercluster, which has a size of 150 million light years.