Milky Way Research Paper

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There are at least one hundred billion galaxies in the observable universe. The first galaxies formed around 13.5 billion years ago after the big bang and the dark ages. NASA states that, “After the Big Bang, the Universe was composed of radiation and subatomic particles.” There are two theories about what happened next. The first theory is that small particles slowly team up and gradually form stars, star clusters, and eventually galaxies. The second theory states that the universe first organize as immense clumps of matter that later subdivided into galaxies.

Milky Way
The most known galaxy is the Milky Way which is our home galaxy. The name “Milky Way” comes from the strip of light that is seen on very dark nights. It is part of a group of about 50 galaxies called the Local Group. “The Milky Way galaxy is about 80,000 to 100,000 light years in diameter, about 250,000 to 300,000 light years in circumference and outside the galactic core about 1,000 light years in thickness.” The Milky Way has hundreds of billions of stars and according to NASA, astronomers conclude that the center of the Milky Way is a supermassive black hole. …show more content…
There are two types of spiral galaxies, regular spiral and barred spiral. Regular Spiral Galaxies contain arms that spiral out from the center. Barred Spiral Galaxies have the appearance of a straight bar that spiraled arms extend out from. About 77% of observed galaxies in the universe are spiral galaxies. In addition, our own galaxy, the Milky Way is a spiral

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