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Credit & Copyright: Mark Garlick
(Space-art)
Explanation:
What does our Milky Way Galaxy look like from afar?
Since we are stuck inside, and since opaque
dust truncates our view in
visible light, nobody knows for sure.
Drawn above, however, is a good guess based on many different types of observations.
In the Milky Way's center
is a very bright core region centered on a
large black hole.
The Milky Way's bright
central bulge
is now thought to be an
asymmetrical bar
of relatively old and red stars.
The outer regions are where the
spiral arms
are found, dominated in appearance by
open clusters
of young, bright, blue stars, by red
emission nebula, and by dark dust.
The spiral arms reside in a disk dominated in mass by relatively dim stars and
loose gas composed mostly of
hydrogen.
What is not depicted is a huge spherical halo of invisible
dark matter that dominates the mass of the
Milky Way
as well as the motions of stars away from the center.
News: APOD editor to speak in January in New York
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NASA Web Site Statements, Warnings, and Disclaimers
NASA Official: Jay Norris. Specific rights apply.
A service of: LHEA at NASA / GSFC
& Michigan Tech. U.
Based on Astronomy Picture
Of the Day
Publications with keywords: Milky Way - stars
Publications with words: Milky Way - stars
See also:
- APOD: 2025 August 28 Á Galaxies, Stars, and Dust
- APOD: 2025 July 2 Á Milky Way Through Otago Spires
- APOD: 2025 May 20 Á Milky Way over Maunakea
- APOD: 2025 May 13 Á Gaia Reconstructs a Top View of our Galaxy
- APOD: 2025 May 12 Á Gaia Reconstructs a Side View of our Galaxy
- Galaxies in Space
- APOD: 2025 February 9 Á Milky Way over the Australian Pinnacles