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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.
The Laniakea Supercluster (/ ˌ l ɑː n i. ə ˈ k eɪ. ə /; Hawaiian for "open skies" or "immense heaven") [2] or the Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is the galaxy supercluster that is home to the Milky Way and approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies.
The Milky Way was traditionally used as a guide by pilgrims traveling to the holy site at Compostela, hence the use of "The Road to Santiago" as a name for the Milky Way. [4] Curiously, La Voje Ladee "The Milky Way" was also used to refer to the pilgrimage road. [12]
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 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.
The first image of the black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy, named Sagittarius A*, has been captured by NASA's Event Horizon Telescope. Supermassive black hole in Milky Way, at 'heart ...
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 ...