世界各地有許多創造天地的神話圍繞著銀河系發展出來。很特別的是，在希臘就有兩個相似的希臘神話故事在解釋銀河是怎麼來的。有些神話將銀河和星座結合在一起，認為成群牛隻的乳液將深藍色的天空染白了。在東亞，人們相信在天空中群星間的霧狀帶是銀色的河流，也就是所謂天河。
About 40% of your Milky Way's clusters are on retrograde orbits, which means they move in the opposite course from the Milky Way rotation.[232] The globular clusters can comply with rosette orbits with regard to the Milky Way, in contrast on the elliptical orbit of the World about a star.[233]
Population I stars consist of a lot more major aspects than globular cluster and halo stars, are typically youthful and found inside the disk, and are Specially concentrated within the spiral arms. The Sunshine is really a member of populace I.
For the majority of of human record, the Milky Way was an item of fantasy and marvel. Only in the early 20th century did astronomers realize its accurate nature as one among many galaxies.
Several stars are historical, relationship again almost on the delivery of the galaxy. These Population II stars, present in the halo and globular clusters, comprise very few hefty aspects, owning formed just before supernovae enriched the galaxy with metals.
As an example, observations of a three-way galactic collision in 2022 using the famed Hubble Room Telescope gave some intriguing insights. The biggest in the group, because it received into a good orbit with another two, snagged some content with its somewhat more robust gravity.
Speaking about our area inside the Milky Way, we’re significantly from its Centre, that's Excellent news (Except if you’ve generally planned to certainly be a neighbor to a big black hole).
The most hanging features it is possible to see in A very dark sky—just one with out gentle air pollution—will be the band of faint white gentle known as the Milky Way, which stretches from one horizon to another. The identify comes from an ancient Greek legend that in comparison its faint white splash of sunshine to the stream of spilled milk.
The key arms include the best densities of each youthful and aged stars; the minor arms are largely crammed with fuel and pockets of star-forming action.
The controversy was conclusively settled by Edwin Hubble during the early twenties utilizing the Mount Wilson observatory two.five m (one hundred in) Hooker telescope. With the light-collecting electrical power of this new telescope, he was in a position to supply astronomical pictures that settled the outer areas of some spiral nebulae as collections of specific stars.
Additionally, it was Oort who decided the posture of our Sunlight during the extensive galaxy. (The Oort Cloud, a repository of trillions of comets considerably in the Sunlight, was named soon after him.)
There is also proof which the Milky Way collided มาวินเบท with several smaller galaxies in the course of its evolution. In 2018, a crew of Dutch astronomers located a bunch of 30,000 stars shifting in sync with the Sunlight's neighborhood in the alternative way to the remainder of the stars in the info established.
By the tip of the visibility year in October the Galactic Heart is visible from the evening. It rises previously Every night time, till it disappears during the sunlight.
Beyond The skinny disk with the galaxy lies the halo, an enormous spherical area populated by ancient stars and globular clusters—dense, spherical swarms of up to one million stars orbiting like satellites throughout the galactic Middle.