• Question: what is the milkyway

    Asked by anon-225677 to Sameed, Jose, joannabarstow, Heidi, Freya, Chris on 12 Nov 2019.
    • Photo: Joanna Barstow

      Joanna Barstow answered on 12 Nov 2019:

      The Milky Way is the name of our galaxy – the collection of stars that our Sun lives in. The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy, which means it has a central circular disc with curved arms on all sides. The Sun is sits in one of the arms.

      In the northern hemisphere, when we look at the night sky we are looking out towards the edge of the galaxy. If you ever visit somewhere in the southern hemisphere, like Australia, you would be looking in the opposite direction towards the centre of the galaxy. For this reason, you could see many more stars from Australia than you can from the UK.

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