Milky Way

From The Maze Where Realities Converge - the psychedelic encyclopedia of reality from The Ultimate Comment

CAUTION: RISK OF FEELING INSIGNIFICANT UPON READING

The Milky Way is the galaxy which is the home of our Solar System together with at least 200 billion other stars (more recent estimates have given numbers around 400 billion). Our solar system is situated at the outer regions of this galaxy about 28,000 light years from the Galactic Center, the 'centre' which everything in the galaxy appears to revolve. The Milky Way Galaxy belongs to the Local Group, a group of over 30 small galaxies.

• (When speaking of the 'outer regions' of this galaxy, it is to be considered the 'z-axis' in the image shown right)

Are you aware that the Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the milky way at an alarmingly fast speed; 300 kilometres per second? Luckily for The Ultimate Comment, and for Earth it won't get to our Galaxy for another three to four billion years. It is thought that if, and when the two galaxies collide, the stars themselves will not collide, but merely merge orbits to form an elliptical-shaped galaxy over the course of another billion years. Which would be pretty cool to see.

See Also

The Universe Ultimate Comment Mars Colony