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The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
Our own Milky Way is generally classed as Sc or SBc, making it a barred spiral with well-defined arms. Examples of regular spiral galaxies: M31 (Andromeda Galaxy), M74, M81, M104 (Sombrero Galaxy), M51a (Whirlpool Galaxy), NGC 300, NGC 772. Examples of barred spiral galaxies: M91, M95, NGC 1097, NGC 1300, NGC1672, NGC 2536, NGC 2903.
Observed structure of the Milky Way 's spiral arms. The Carina–Sagittarius Arm (also known as the Sagittarius Arm or Sagittarius–Carina Arm, labeled -I [clarification needed]) is generally thought to be a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. [1] Each spiral arm is a long, diffuse curving streamer of stars that radiates from the ...
The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at about 300 km/s (200 miles per second) as indicated by blueshift. However, the lateral speed (measured as proper motion ) is very difficult to measure with sufficient precision to draw reasonable conclusions.
An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work The Realm of the Nebulae, [1] along with spiral and lenticular galaxies. Elliptical (E) galaxies are, together ...
Galactic year. The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. [1] One galactic year is approximately 225 million Earth years. [2] The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 230 km/s (828,000 km/h) or 143 mi/s (514,000 mph) within its ...
e. In astrobiology and planetary astrophysics, the galactic habitable zone is the region of a galaxy in which life might most likely develop. The concept of a galactic habitable zone analyzes various factors, such as metallicity (the presence of elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) and the rate and density of major catastrophes such as ...
Composite image showing young stars in and around molecular cloud Cepheus B.. This is a list of star-forming regions located in the Milky Way Galaxy and in the Local Group.Star formation occurs in molecular clouds which become unstable to gravitational collapse, and these complexes may contain clusters of young stars and regions of ionized gas called H II regions.