Welcome to the parallax
Milky Way! 🚀

What is the Milky Way?

Our Galactic Home

The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy that spans over 100,000 light-years and contains our solar system, along with hundreds of billions of stars, countless planets, and vast clouds of interstellar gas and dust.

When you gaze at the night sky, the hazy band of light stretching across it is the galactic plane — a dense concentration of stars viewed from within. The galaxy is also enveloped in a halo of dark matter, which plays a crucial role in its structure, formation, and long-term evolution.

Stars and Systems

Billions of Suns

The Milky Way is home to between 200 and 400 billion stars, many with their own planetary systems. Our Sun is just one of these many stars. Scattered among them are nebulae, stellar nurseries, and ancient remnants of supernovae.

Our Place in the Galaxy

Just a dot in the dark

Earth orbits the Sun, which in turn orbits the center of the Milky Way — a journey that takes about 225 million years to complete. We’re roughly 27,000 light-years from the galactic core, nestled in a relatively calm region of our galaxy.

See it yourself

Stargazing the Milky Way

Away from city lights, the Milky Way reveals itself in spectacular fashion. The best time to view it is during the summer months, from rural locations, with minimal light pollution. What you see is a thin slice of our home — a small window into a much larger structure.

Into the future

Where do we go from here?

Humanity is only beginning to explore its galactic neighborhood. With telescopes like the James Webb Space Telescope and missions to distant planets, we are slowly uncovering the Milky Way’s secrets — and perhaps one day, we’ll visit its farthest stars.