Mind Blowing Facts about Milky Way

Have you ever wondered where are you living, have you wondered what’s your place in the infinite stretch of universe? Where do you live? Where is the earth? Is there any other form of life other than the those found on earth? Well, that’s a far more complicated topic. Let me simplify it for you in order to tell you where we live.

In infinite number of galaxies, we are living in a galaxy named milky way, a spiral galaxy that contains uncountable number of stars and has a diameter of 120,000-180,000 light years.
We live on planet earth that orbits around the sun. our Earth is present in a solar system that is 27,000 light years away from galactic center. It is present on the inner space of one of the arms of our milky way galaxy called the orion arm. The arms of milky way are of special spiral shape and contains gas and dust particles along with the stars, asteroids etc.

So here are ten mind blowing facts about milky way that you didn’t know !

1. The Dark Matter:

90 percent of the mass of galaxy is made up of a matter called dark matter that can not be seen through naked eye which forms a mysterious halo.
What we see in the milky way contributes to only less than 10 percent mass of the galaxy. The halo i.e. the dark matter is completely invisible it can not be seen through any technology as it does not give off any light.
Its presence is described by how the milky way would have appeared if only stars were present in it. Would they have orbited in the galaxy at much faster rate? Well, according to the study, The heavier the galaxy, the faster the stars would orbit in it. If we assume, that there is no dark matter in the galaxy and that its is only made up of visible matter, then the stars would have orbited at a lesser pace than they are orbiting now.
This dark matter interacts with the objects only through its gravitation.

2. 200 to 400 Billion stars

Our galaxy milky way is known to contain 200 Billion stars,, and it is a middleweight galaxy. If we consider the largest galaxy that we know up till now, it is IC 1101, it contains about 100 trillion stars. Other galaxies can also have Trillions of stars. Small galaxies are named as dwarf galaxy.

Dwarf galaxies can contain almost 10 billion stars. IF we compare it with milky way, on average milky way contains about 100 to 400 billion stars
If you are living in a city somewhere on this planet earth. In night, you look up towards the sky, you can see on average about 2500 stars, but the number can change as the stars are continuously being formed and are destroyed.
On average, it is producing about 7 new stars per Year.

3. A mass of dust and Gas

Our milky way contains a lot of dust and gas. This matter makes up approximately 10 percent of the milky way as described earlier.

4. Made from other Galaxies:

Our Galaxy as it is today, was made from other galaxies. It is continuously eating up other galaxies and it is increasing its size and shape by rating other stars. Eating stars mean by making them a part of its dust.

It has already eaten saggitarius Dwarf Galaxy and is continue towards the Cannis Major Dwarf Galaxy which is closest to our galaxy) it will soon become a part of milky way.

5. The images of Milky way Galaxy are fake !

All the pictures we see of milky way galaxy aren’t real. Currently we are living in milky way galaxy approximately 26000 light years from our galactic center. We haven’t reached out of our Galaxy ever. So how can we take a picture? Its just like capturing a picture of your own room by standing inside it.

6. The Black hole present at the center:

A lot of galaxies present in our universe have a black hole at the center. Milky way is no different from others in this respect.
The black hole present in the center of our galaxy is Sagitarius A* of size 22.5 million kilometers which is nearly equal to the orbit of mercury !

7. Its Constantly rotating !

The Milky way isn’t still ! The arms of our galaxy that we see in the photos are moving constantly through space. Our solar system is travelling at the speed of 828,00 km per hour !

8. Weight of Galaxy

The weight of milky way is about 410 billion to 780 billion times the mass of our sun !

9. Galaxies orbit milky way !

There is a small circular cluster of what we thought before, the stars that orbit around the galaxy. Later on, it was found that it is another dwarf galaxy that orbit around our galaxy just as our planet orbit around the sun.

10. The Milky way is going to crash with its neighbor in 4 billion years !

Our Galaxy is accelerating towards the Andromeda Galaxy with a speed of 400,000 km/h.
And when after 4 billion years, our galaxy will strike with Andromeda, The Andromeda will eat up our Galaxy and there will be light show of a million years, stars colliding with stars, Bursting, and destroying everything present in both of them !