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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 Great Attractor is a region of gravitational attraction in intergalactic space and the apparent central gravitational point of the Laniakea Supercluster of galaxies that includes the Milky Way galaxy, as well as about 100,000 other galaxies. The observed attraction suggests a localized concentration of mass having the order of 10 16 solar ...
Small Magellanic Cloud. The Small Magellanic Cloud ( SMC) is a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way. [ 5] Classified as a dwarf irregular galaxy, the SMC has a D 25 isophotal diameter of about 5.78 kiloparsecs (18,900 light-years), [ 1][ 3] and contains several hundred million stars. [ 5] It has a total mass of approximately 7 billion solar masses. [ 6]
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 ...
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. [7] At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (163,000 light-years), [2] [8] [9] [10] the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal (c. 16 kiloparsecs (52,000 light-years) away) and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy called the Canis Major Overdensity.