The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. Its name derives from how it appears in the night sky; as a dim un-resolved “milky” glowing band arching across the sky. The term “Milky Way” is a translation of the Latin for “milky road”, Via Lactea, in turn derived from the Greek kyklos galaktikos or “milky circle”, “milk” also being the root for the Greek word for Galaxy, Γαλαξίας (Galaxias).
It has this appearance because of our position within the galactic plane around two thirds of the way out from the center, on the inner edge of the Orion–Cygnus Arm, with the majority of the galaxy being seen edge on. The concept of this faint band of light being made up of stars was proven in 1610 when Galileo Galilei used his telescope to resolve it into individual stars. In the 1920s observations by astronomer Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way was just one of around 200 billion galaxies in the observable universe….
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