2023-06-16 20:22:19
Outer space never ceases to amaze with everything that can be found, and that is that every time scientists venture on an expedition to obtain new data, the investigations shed valuable information on what surrounds life in outer space. Milky Way.
What is considered our celestial home is full of stars, supernovae, nebulae, energy and dark matter, but for the scientific community, some of the characteristics of the Milky Way, they remain a mystery.
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What is the Milky Way?
The Milky Way it is a fairly typical spiral with four main arms on its disk, made up of several hundred billion stars; one of them is the Sun. It is important to know and understand everything that happens inside our galaxy, in order to study evolution, the formation of stars and planetary systems, and the distribution of matter and energy in the Universe.
It began to form 13 billion years ago and is part of a group of about 50 galaxies called the Local Group, also known as the galactic neighborhood.
The galactic center is located about 26,000 light-years away from Earth and contains at least one supermassive black hole (called Sagittarius A*).
The Milky Way It is named for the irregular luminous band of stars and gas clouds that stretches across the sky, which can be seen from Earth.
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What are the 5 little-known facts about the Milky Way?
1. The name of the Milky Way is related to the myth of Hercules, who was cared for as a baby by the goddess Hera. When he woke up and moved away from her, her breast milk spilled into the heavens, hence the name Milky Way.
2. This galaxy has an almost flat appearance, and within this flattened disk, everything is twisted.
3. There is no exact way to know who discovered the Milky Way, Galileo is known to have recognized the galaxy’s band of light as individual stars in 1610.
4. Finally, in 1920 the astronomer Edwin Hubble provided evidence that the spiral nebulae in the sky were actually entire galaxies, this being a way of understanding the true nature and shape of the Milky Way, as well as its size and scale. of the universe that surrounds us.
5. Unfortunately, the collision of the Milky Way with the Large Magellanic Cloud will occur before the collision with the Andromeda Galaxy. The first deadly encounter will occur in 2 billion years.
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