Milky Way Stars Spiral Galaxy

For more like this, visit About this design: The Milky Way, our home galaxy, derives its name from the dim "milky" appearence that it presents in the night sky from our perspective. The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy 100,000–120,000 light-years in diameter containing 200–400 billion stars. The galaxy is estimated to contain at least as many planets, 10 billion of which could be located in the habitable zone of their parent star. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group of galaxies. The galaxy consists of a bar-shaped core region surrounded by a disc of gas, dust and stars forming four distinct arm structures spiralling outward in a logarithmic spiral shape, commonly referred to as the "spiral arms." The Milky Way is part of the "Local Group" galaxy cluster, with the Andromeda galaxy being the next closest spiral galaxy to our own.