BEYOND THE

SOLAR SYSTEM
THE MILKY WAY GALAXY
The Milky Way
Galaxy
 The Milky Way
Galaxy
• Some of the ‘stars’ we
see on a dark cloudless
night may actually be
collections of Galaxies.
There are about 10 000
million galaxies in the
universe.
The Milky
Way
Galaxy
Our Sun is towards the
edge of the Milky Way
Galaxy in one of the
smaller ‘arms’.

The Sun is roughly 27 000

light years (distance light
travels in a year) from the
center.
The Milky Way Galaxy

• The Milky Way galaxy is

shaped like a flat disc.
• Our Solar System is in
the plane of the disc, so
we see light from our
Galaxy’s stars arranged
as the Milky Way across
it.
The Milky Way Galaxy

• The Diameter of
the disc shape is
about 100 000
light years. In the
centre it is about
10 000 light years
thick
Milky Way

• The Milky Way gets its

name from a Greek
myth about the
goddess Hera who
sprayed milk across the
sky. ... This is what the
Milky Way might look
like from the side. It's
like a giant disk with a
bump in the middle!
Without a telescope ,
we can see about 6,000
stars from Earth.
 Our Nearest star
The hundreds and thousands of dots twinkling in the night sky are all stars. The
closest star to our Solar System, and the nearest easily visible star, is one of the
Pointers to the Southern Cross constellation called the Alpha Centauri.
 Light Years, hours and minutes
Distances in the universe is so large such that we need a unit
larger than a kilometer to measure them.
Therefore, in astronomy, distances are measured in light
years.
Light years
• A light year is the distance light travels in one year
Light Hours and minutes
• A light hour is the distance light travels in an
hour.
• Our Solar System has a diameter of about 13
light hours.
• 1 light hour= 10 800 000 000km
• 10 800 000 000 x 13=
• A light minute is the distance light travels in
one minute.
• Sunlight takes 8 minutes to reach Earth,
therefore we can say that the Sun is 8 light
minutes away Earth.
• 1 light minute=180 000 000km
Beyond the Milky Way
Galaxy
• The universe is described as all of the space
and its contents.
• It is mostly empty space dotted with Galaxies,
as far as telescopes can see.
The three types of Galaxies

Spiral Galaxies Elliptical Galaxies

Irregular
Galaxies
Activity 2