The Milky Way Galaxy

The Milky Way Galaxy is a vast, spiral-shaped collection of stars, gas, dust, and dark matter, forming the galaxy we live in. It spans about 100,000 light-years across and contains hundreds of billions of stars, including our Sun. The galaxy has a bright central core surrounded by spiral arms where new stars are born. Our solar system orbits the galaxy’s center at a speed of about 828,000 km/h, completing one orbit roughly every 225-250 million years. The Milky Way is part of a local group of galaxies and is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe.