What is the Milky Way?
Our Galactic Home
What is the Milky Way?
Look up on a clear, dark night, far from city lights. That soft glowing band stretched across the sky? That's the Milky Way — and here's the secret: you're standing inside it right now.
The Milky Way is our galaxy — a giant spinning collection of stars, dust, and gas, all held together by gravity. It's shaped like a flat disk with a bright bulge in the middle, kind of like a fried egg. Our sun is just one of about 200 billion stars in this disk, sitting out in the suburbs, about two-thirds of the way from the center.
