Page 38 - The Glory in the Heavens

The Milky Way
The Milky Way
The Milky Way is the name of the galaxy in which

our Earth is located. The Milky Way galaxy is enormous.

As is the case with all big galaxies, the Milky Way also

has a galactic centre. You will probably remember what

a galactic centre is since we discussed it in the previous

section. The stars inside these centres are older stars; they

are red or yellow in colour. The stars in the arms of the

galaxies are mostly young and hot stars of blue colour.

These aside, gas and dust clouds exist in these arms.

The Milky Way has the shape of a spiral; in fact,

the shape of the galaxy is identical to a "pinwheel".
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That is, it has arms at the centre extending towards the

outer parts. There are four arms. One of these is the

"Hunter Arm". The group of planets called the "Solar

System" is located in this arm, and our Earth is one of

the planets within this group.

Our Solar System is located a little more than one

half of the way out from the centre of this spiral-shaped

galaxy. The Sun (and our solar system) is revolving

around the centre of the galaxy, and makes a complete
revolution every 220 million years or so.

The giant Milky Way has maintained this form and

movement for billions of years. Although the stars in it