Can you believe not everyone has seen our Milky Way with their own eyes? It’s our own galaxy, and many people haven’t seen how beautiful it is. Our galaxy is made up of billions of stars, gas, and dust, and it’s truly something astonishing to see and be a part of.
To the naked eye, the Milky Way looks mostly white, but it emits different colors: reds, oranges, blues, purples, etc. This is caused by the gases in the Milky Way and the different colors of its stars. Our galaxy is a spiral galaxy. It emits more vibrant blue colors than if it were an elliptical galaxy because of the newer and hotter stars found in the spiral arms.
The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy that contains several arms. We happen to be in the Orion Spur, one of the minor arms between the Sagittarius Arm and the Perseus Arm. What is at the center of our Milky Way? Many thought it might be the Sun, but it’s a supermassive blackhole. Almost all galaxies have these black holes at their centers.
Our Milky Way is about 13.5 billion years old, and astronomers gather lots of data from many stars to figure out how old our galaxy is. The disk began forming first around 13 billion years ago only around 0.8 billion years after the Big Bang, not very long after the universe first formed. There is still a lot of research to be done over our Milky Way, and there are questions that still aren’t answered and may not be answered for years. But new research is being done and may start revealing clues as to how our beautiful galaxy formed into what it is today.
You’ve been listening to Western Slope Skies, produced by the Black Canyon Astronomical Society and KVNF Community Radio. This feature was written and recorded by Alexis Medina, an astronomy student of Dr. Catherine Whiting at Colorado Mesa University. Music written and produced by Kenny Mihelich (ma-HELL-itch).
