The Milky Way
Welcome to my blog! In class we had to do a project on Earth and Space systems. We got to choose our topic and write and answer eight questions about it. I chose the Milky Way. I thought that there wasn't much to the Milky Way, but boy was I wrong. Over the passed couple of weeks I learned so much about the Milky Way, and some of the facts blow my mind! In this blog I will answer the eight questions I wrote and I hope you will know much more about the Milky Way after reading it than you did before. Please note that some of my paragraphs may not be the required length; this is because I could only find so much information on some of the subjects. Enjoy!
Why is the Milky Way called the Milky Way?
We call it the Milky Way without thinking, but did you ever wonder why it is called the Milky Way? The Milky Way is called the Milky Way because of the "milky" or hazy band that we can sometimes see stretching across the night sky. Our galaxy is a spiral galaxy, but we see a line because we are looking at it from the inside. This faint strip is made up of thousands of stars. We cannot see all of the stars and they blurr together creating the milky effect. The strip we can see from earth looks like a band of white light, or spilt milk. One of the first people to see the Milky Way were the Ancient Greeks. When they realized it looked like spilt milk they created this legend. They thought that one of their gods, Zeus, had a baby with a mortal person named Alcmene. Their baby Hercules lived with his father with all of the gods but he wanted to see his mother. When he learned to crawl he tried to crawl across the sky to visit his mom when he spilt his milk, creating the Milky Way. So the Ancient Greeks called that faint strip a galaxy. Why? Because galaxy means milky in Ancient Greek. That is why the Milky Way is called the Milky Way.
How Was The Milky Way Created?
Scientists used to think that the Milky Way was created much like a star, from a giant gas cloud, but not long ago they did some more studies on the Milky Way and realized that this theory did not make sense. They realized that the Milky Way was so huge, and was home to so many stars and planets, that it would need many different parts of many gas clouds. So they re-thought the original idea. Today scientists believe that when a cluster of stars is created, this creates a gas cloud and when enough gas clouds are merged together, they create the first stage of a galaxy - called protogalactic galaxy. A protogalactic galaxy is "lumpy" as it is just a big clump of dust, but over three-four million years, it smoothes out and becomes a true galaxy. Other cultures have different myths too, on how the Milky Way was created. From spilled milk to a bridge of stars, every culture has their own beliefs.
Explain How Large The Milky Way Is.
The Milky Way is VERY large. It is approximately 100 000 - 120 000 light years in diameter. You might think that isn't very big, but think again. One light year is equal to 10 trillion kilometres! That is HUGE! Our solar system is only 1.5 light years in diameter and our sun is only 8 light minutes away from the earth. So the Milky Way is gigantic. The Milky Way isn't even one of the largest galaxies. If you think about that, don't you feel small? Not yet...well listen to this. Imagine if our solar system was the size of a quarter (obviously it isn't, but just pretend). If it was the size of a quarter, our planets would be microscopic specks. The Milky Way would be the size of the United States of America! Now don't you feel small? We would just be a speck on a speck on a quarter in America. Also, if our solar system was a quarter, the next solar system would be a quarter away. Another helpful perspective - If we were able to fit the Milky Way on two pages, the sun would be such a tiny dot, we wouldn't be able to see it. The Milky Way doesn't look that big, but trust me, it is. So if there is that much space in the Milky Way and there are billions of planets per galaxy, we come to the unknown question - Is there other life out there?
Describe How Many Stars Are In The Milky Way
The Milky Way is so large, it is hard to imagine just how many stars are in it. There are more stars in the Milky Way than we can count, however we can only see approximately 500 of them with the naked eye. Scientists assume that there are as many stars in the Milky Way as there are grains of sand on a somewhat large beach. If there are that many stars in the Milky Way alone, imagine how many stars there are in the entire universe. Stars group together in clusters over time. There are over 200 billion clusters of stars in the Milky Way and each cluster contains roughly 1 million stars. That is a lot of stars and there are at least that many planets. Every star that we can see from Earth with the naked eye is in the Milky Way. Our sun is just one of the billions and billions of stars in our galaxy. So we are not sure how many stars are in our galaxy because it is beyond our ability to count, but we are sure that there are a lot.
What Is The Milky Way Made Of?
We know how the Milky Way was created, but is that it? No. Only 5-10% of the Milky Way is made up of a mixture of stars, dust and gas, spread out or clumped together. The other 90-95% is made up of "something". Scientists are not sure what that "something" is: dwarf stars; black holes; or something else entirely. A galaxy has a lot of empty space. Because there is so much empty space, two galaxies can pull on each other and actually change the shape of those two galaxies.
Is Our Solar System In The Milky Way?
Yes, our solar system is in the Milky Way galaxy. We live in the Milky Way. When we look up in the night sky, we might see a milky strip of stars. If we could see from outside the Milky Way, it would look a whole lot different, and we wouldn't be able to see our solar system. Our sun would be microscopic speck in one of the spiral arms.
Describe the Milky Way.
A Spiral Galaxy Viewed from the side.
So we know how big the Milky Way is, how many stars there are and other facts, but what does it look like exactly? From earth the Milky Way looks like a huge, blurry, white, sparkling cloud. The billions of stars give it the hazy effect around the edges. Looking at it from earth it looks like a thick band of light but this is really the edge of our galaxy. Depending on where you see the Milky Way depends on what it looks like. If you see it from a bright city you will not see it as clearly or brightly as from the country where it is darker. But from the inside of the Milky Way it looks a lot different than the outside. Although we cannot know for sure what the Milky Way looks like from the outside and we might never know, scientists can assume what it would look like. But because of this we have no pictures of the Milky Way from outside of it. The pictures in my blog are of different galaxies. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy. That means that there in a bulge in the center or "axis" and spiral arms that come out of it. Scientists believe that in the middle of our galaxy there is a super massive black hole. The whole galaxy is rotating clockwise and it takes 200 million years to rotate once! From the outside the Milky Way it is blue, black and purple, but from the inside it looks white.
Explain the Constellations in the Milky Way.
Because every star we can see with the naked eye is in the Milky Way every constellation we can see is in the Milky Way too. Some constellations in our galaxy include:
~Cassiopeia
~Cepheus,
~Draco
~Ursa Minor
~Ursa Major
~Orian's belt
~Cancer
~ the Big Dipper
and
~the Little Dipper
Although these are only nine of the thousands of constellations in the Milky Way these are some of the most commenly known.
~Cassiopeia
~Cepheus,
~Draco
~Ursa Minor
~Ursa Major
~Orian's belt
~Cancer
~ the Big Dipper
and
~the Little Dipper
Although these are only nine of the thousands of constellations in the Milky Way these are some of the most commenly known.
Bibliography
Thank you to these Sources!
~The Night Sky Atlas
~100 Facts on Space
~World of Science
~Galaxies galaxies!
~Galaxies
~Wikipedia
~sciencedaily.com
~askkids.com
~Yahoo!kids.com
~astronamycafe.net
~harvard.edu
~The Night Sky Atlas
~100 Facts on Space
~World of Science
~Galaxies galaxies!
~Galaxies
~Wikipedia
~sciencedaily.com
~askkids.com
~Yahoo!kids.com
~astronamycafe.net
~harvard.edu