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Milky Way
[ mil-kee wey ]
noun
- the spiral galaxy containing our solar system: with the naked eye it appears as a faint luminous band stretching across the heavens, composed of approximately a trillion stars, most of which are too distant to be seen individually.
Milky Way
/ mĭl′kē /
- The spiral galaxy that contains our solar system. Made up of an estimated two hundred billion stars or more, it is seen from Earth as an irregular band of hazy light across the night sky. The solar system is located in one of the revolving spiral arms, about 50 light-years north of the galactic plane and some 27,700 light-years from the galaxy's center, which lies in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. It takes approximately 250 million years for the solar system to orbit the galactic center, which is believed to contain a massive black hole. The Milky Way measures about 100,000 light-years in diameter and is the second largest galaxy, after the Andromeda Galaxy, in the cluster known as the Local Group.
- See also spiral galaxy
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Word History and Origins
Origin of Milky Way1
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Word History and Origins
Origin of Milky Way1
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Example Sentences
Models from the 1960s and ’70s predicted that most Milky Way halo stars should have formed in place.
New research shows early galaxies were much bigger—some 10 times the mass of the Milky Way—than astronomers expected.
Astronomers recently placed the Milky Way on the fringe of a huge supercluster.
For example, based on the ages of stars, we know the Milky Way is about 13.2 billion years old.
One magnetar is only about a light-year from the black hole at the center of the Milky Way.
Most stars in the Milky Way have humdrum lives, tracing slow predictable orbits around the galactic center.
"No," said the Twins, "but there are no cats in the Milky Way," and they pulled the cat's tail thoughtfully.
"Her face was like the milky way," &c.—Where is the subjoined quotation taken from, and what is the context?
The Milky Way was a kind of Paradise of souls; whilst the sun was the centre of the whole creation.
It is the Galaxy, the Milky Way, composed of millions on millions of suns!
My brain got running on figures till the dark seemed to be all sown with dollar-marks, like the stars in the Milky Way.
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