Milky Way Flashcards
What is the milky way?
Milky Way’sGalactic Centerin the night sky above theParanal Observatory(the laser creates aguide-starfor the telescope)
What is a galaxy?
agravitationallybound system ofstars,stellar remnants,interstellar gas,dust, anddark matter. Galaxies range in size fromdwarfswith just a few hundred million (108) stars togiantswith one hundredtrillion(1014) stars,each orbiting its galaxy’scenter of mass.
Categories of galaxy
Galaxies are categorized according to their visualmorphologyaselliptical,spiral, orirregular. Many galaxies are thought to havesupermassive black holesat their centers.
What category is the milky way?
a large barred spiral galaxy
Why called the milky way?
Our galaxy is called the Milky Way because it appears as a milky band of light in the sky when you see it in a really dark area.
History of the milky way
Galileo Galileifirst resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610.
How many stars are in the milky way?
100 million stars
How long does it take the sun to go around the milky way?
It takes 250 million years for our Sun and the solar system to go all the way around the center of the Milky Way.
What is the rotational center of the milky way?
The Galactic Center
Barred spiral galaxy?
Abarred spiral galaxyis aspiral galaxywith a central bar-shaped structure composed of stars.
What clues tell us the milky way is a barred spiral?
the first clue to the shape of the Milky Way comes from the bright band of stars that stretches across the sky
Gusto mission?
NASA recently selected theGalactic/Extragalactic ULDB Spectroscopic Terahertz Observatory (GUSTO) missionto fly a telescope carried by balloon to map out large sections in the Milky Way and nearby Large Magellenic Cloud. 2021
