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.
