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The Milky Way is approximately 890 billion to 1.54 trillion times the mass of the Sun in total (8.9 × 10 11 to 1.54 × 10 12 solar masses), [ 7][ 8][ 9] although stars and planets make up only a small part of this. Estimates of the mass of the Milky Way vary, depending upon the method and data used.
Galactic Center. The Galactic Center, as seen by one of the 2MASS infrared telescopes, is located in the bright upper left portion of the image. Marked location of the Galactic Center. The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy. [ 1][ 2] Its central massive object is a ...
The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way, where Earth is located. It has a total diameter of roughly 3 megaparsecs (10 million light-years; 9 × 10 19 kilometres ), [ 1] and a total mass of the order of 2 × 10 12 solar masses (4 × 10 42 kg). [ 2] It consists of two collections of galaxies in a "dumbbell" shape; the ...
Measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006 suggest the Magellanic Clouds may be moving too fast to be orbiting the Milky Way. [3] Of the galaxies confirmed to be in orbit, the largest is the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy, which has a diameter of 2.6 kiloparsecs (8,500 ly) [4] or roughly a twentieth that of the Milky Way.
The Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy ( Sgr dSph ), also known as the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy ( Sgr dE or Sag DEG ), is an elliptical loop-shaped satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. It contains four globular clusters in its main body, [ 8] with the brightest of them— NGC 6715 (M54)—being known well before the discovery of the ...
Astronomers have used the Gaia space telescope to spy some of the first building blocks of the Milky Way galaxy: two ancient streams of stars named Shakti and Shiva that helped our home galaxy ...
Galactic coordinate system. Artist's depiction of the Milky Way Galaxy showing the origin and orientation of galactic longitude. The galactic longitude ( l) runs from the Sun upwards in the image through the center of the galaxy. The galactic latitude ( b) is perpendicular to the image (i.e. coming out of the image) and also centered on the Sun.
Baade's Window. Baade's Window is an area of the sky with relatively low amounts of interstellar dust along the line of sight from Earth. This area is considered an observational "window" as the normally obscured Galactic Center of the Milky Way is visible in this direction. This makes the apparent Large Sagittarius Star Cloud visible.