What is a galaxy and what is the Milky Way?
Home in the Stars
What is a galaxy and what is the Milky Way?
Look up on a really dark night, far from city lights, and you might see a faint, milky smudge stretching across the sky. People once thought someone had spilled milk up there. They were wrong — but honestly, not by much. That smudge is our home. Let's find out what it actually is.
First, let's get the big word out of the way. A galaxy is an enormous family of stars — millions, billions, sometimes trillions of them — all held together in one giant group by gravity. Gravity is the invisible pull that keeps your feet on the ground and keeps the Moon circling Earth. Out in space, that same pull is the glue holding all those stars together as one bunch.
