10 Interesting Facts About The Milky Way

6. It is moving

Milky Way with all its surroundings in the universe is moving over space. Planet Earth is moving around the Sun and the sun around the Milky Way. Milky Way being a part of Local Group is moving virtually to the CMB radiation (Cosmic microwave background radiation). It is the radiation left over from the Big Bang.

Cosmic microwave background radiation helps in measuring the velocity of things in the universe. The Local group is calculated to be moving at a speed of about 600km/s comparative to the CMB. It works out to about 2.2 million km/h.

7. Milky ways are dusty and gassy

Milky Way is very sparkling in the visible spectrum but the interesting fact is it is full of gasses and dust particles.  In our galaxy this makes up a whopping 10-15% of the visible matter with the residues being the stars. Our galaxy is about 100,000 light years in which we can see only about 6,000 light years into the disk visibly.

When the light pollution is not substantial then we can recognize the dusty ring of the Milky Way in the night sky. Visible light deflects due to the thickness of the dust but the infrared light can pass through the dust. Due to which the Spitzer Space telescope is really a valuable tool in studying and mapping the galaxy. It can peer of the realm through the dust to give us a strange clear view of star-forming regions.

8. It is warped

Milky Way is a disk of 120,000 light years across with the central bulge of 12,000 light years diameter. This disk is warped in shape which astronomer’s aspect to the galaxy two neighbors large and small Magellan clouds. These two are part of the Local Group of galaxies that might orbit the Milky Way.

It is assumed that they have been dragging the dark matter in the galaxy that creates a sort of oscillating frequency that twitches galaxy’s hydrogen gas.

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