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The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galaxy, which are so far away that they cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
English: Sun's Path Around the Milky Way. An illustration showing the path of the Sun, Earth and Moon around the Milky Way. The inclinations of the Ecliptic Plane and Celestial Equator are shown with respect to the Galactic North Pole and Galactic Plane. The inclination of the moon's orbit is shown relative to the Ecliptic Plane.
The Laniakea Supercluster (/ ˌ l ɑː n i. ə ˈ k eɪ. ə /; Hawaiian for "open skies" or "immense heaven") [2] or the Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is the galaxy supercluster that is home to the Milky Way and approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies.
The center of our Milky Way Galaxy is located in the constellation of Sagittarius. In visible light the lion's share of stars are hidden behind thick clouds of dust. This obscuring dust becomes increasingly transparent at infrared wavelengths.
The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses , which is called Sagittarius A* , [ 3 ] [ 4 ] [ 5 ] a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational ...
Both were once considered to be part of the Local Group, [6] but are now known to be among the dozen bright spiral galaxies near the Milky Way but beyond the confines of the Local Group. [7] NGC 6946 lies within the Virgo Supercluster. [8] The galaxy was discovered by William Herschel on 9 September 1798.
The Great Rift covers one third of the Milky Way, and is flanked by strips of numerous stars, such as the Cygnus Star Cloud. [2] West of the Cepheus Clouds , the Funnel cloud / Le Gentil 3 and the bordering North America Nebula , the Great Rift starts with the Northern Coalsack at the constellation of Cygnus , where it is known as the Cygnus ...