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Space milky way galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy: description, composition and interesting facts




Divide by social groups, our galaxy Milky Way will belong to a strong "middle class". So, it belongs to the most common type of galaxy, but at the same time it is not average in size or mass. There are more galaxies that are smaller than the Milky Way than those that are larger than it. Our "star island" also has at least 14 satellites - other dwarf galaxies. They are doomed to circle the Milky Way until they are consumed by it, or fly away from an intergalactic collision. Well, so far this is the only place where life certainly exists - that is, we are with you.

But still the Milky Way remains the most mysterious galaxy in the Universe: being on the very edge of the "star island", we see only a part of its billions of stars. And the galaxy is completely invisible - it is covered with dense sleeves of stars, gas and dust. The facts and secrets of the Milky Way will be discussed today.

The Milky Way is our home galaxy, in which the Solar System is located, in which the planet Earth is located, on which people live. It belongs to barred spiral galaxies and is included in the Local Group of galaxies along with the Andromeda galaxy, the Triangulum galaxy and 40 dwarf galaxies. The diameter of the Milky Way is 100,000 light years. There are about 200-400 billion stars in our galaxy. Our solar system is located on the outskirts of the disk of the galaxy, in a relatively quiet place, which allowed the origin of life on our planet. We may not be the only ones living in the Milky Way, but that remains to be seen. Although, in the ocean of the Universe, the entire history of mankind is nothing more than a barely noticeable ripple, it is very interesting for us to learn about the Milky Way and follow the development of events in our own galaxy.

According to astronomers, most stars slowly rotate around galactic centers at a speed of no more than 100 kilometers per second. However, there are exceptions to this rule. Over the past few decades, scientists have discovered about 20 superfast stars in our galaxy. The latest such discovery is PSR J0002+6216. its movement is 1130 kilometers per second or more than four million kilometers per hour. Quite enough to get to the same moon in 6 minutes. According to the astronomers from the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory, who discovered it, if this dynamics is maintained, the object will escape from our galaxy in the distant future.

Milky Way (MP) is a huge gravitational connected system, containing at least 200 billion stars, thousands of giant clouds of gas and dust, clusters and nebulae. Belongs to the class of barred spiral galaxies. The MP is compressed in a plane and in profile looks like a "flying saucer".

The Milky Way with the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Triangulum Galaxy (M33), and more than 40 dwarf satellite galaxies - its own and Andromeda - together form the Local Group of galaxies, which is part of the Local Supercluster (Virgo Supercluster).

Our Galaxy has the following structure: a nucleus, consisting of billions of stars, with a black hole in the center; a disk of stars, gas and dust with a diameter of 100,000 light years and a thickness of 1000 light years, in the middle part of the disk a bulge 3000 light years thick. years; sleeves; spherical halo (crown) containing dwarf galaxies, globular star clusters, individual stars, groups of stars, dust and gas.

The central regions of the Galaxy are characterized by strong concentration stars: each cubic parsec near the center contains many thousands of them. Distances between stars are tens and hundreds of times less than in the vicinity of the Sun.

The galaxy rotates, but not uniformly with the entire disk. As we approach the center, the angular velocity of rotation of stars around the center of the Galaxy increases.

In the plane of the Galaxy, in addition to an increased concentration of stars, there is also increased concentration dust and gas. Between the center of the Galaxy and the spiral arms (branches) is a gas ring - a mixture of gas and dust, strongly radiating in radio and infrared range. The width of this ring is about 6 thousand light years. It is located in the zone between 10,000 and 16,000 light years from the center. The gas ring contains billions solar masses gas and dust and is the site of active star formation.

The Galaxy has a corona that contains globular clusters and dwarf galaxies (the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds and other clusters). There are also stars and groups of stars in the galactic corona. Some of these groups interact with globular clusters and dwarf galaxies.

The plane of the Galaxy and the plane of the solar system do not coincide, but are at an angle to each other, and planetary system The Sun makes a revolution around the center of the Galaxy in about 180-220 million Earth years - this is how long one galactic year lasts for us.

In the vicinity of the Sun, it is possible to track sections of two spiral arms that are about 3 thousand light years away from us. According to the constellations where these areas are observed, they were given the name of the Sagittarius arm and the Perseus arm. The sun is located almost in the middle between these spiral arms. But relatively close to us (by galactic standards), in the constellation of Orion, there is another, not very clearly defined arm - the Orion arm, which is considered an offshoot of one of the main spiral arms of the Galaxy.

The speed of rotation of the Sun around the center of the Galaxy almost coincides with the speed of the compression wave that forms the spiral arm. This situation is atypical for the Galaxy as a whole: the spiral arms rotate at a constant angular velocity, like spokes in wheels, and the movement of stars occurs with a different pattern, so almost the entire stellar population of the disk either gets inside the spiral arms or falls out of them. The only place where the speeds of stars and spiral arms coincide is the so-called corotation circle, and it is on it that the Sun is located.

For the Earth, this circumstance is extremely important, since violent processes occur in the spiral arms, forming powerful radiation destructive to all living things. And no atmosphere could protect him from it. But our planet exists in a relatively quiet place in the Galaxy and has not been affected by these cosmic cataclysms for hundreds of millions (or even billions) of years. Perhaps that is why life was able to be born and survive on Earth.

An analysis of the rotation of the Galaxy showed that it contains large masses of non-luminous (non-radiating) matter, called "hidden mass" or "dark halo". The mass of the Galaxy, taking into account this hidden mass, is estimated at about 10 trillion solar masses. According to one hypothesis, part of the hidden mass may lie in brown dwarfs, in gas giant planets, occupying an intermediate position between stars and planets, and in dense and cold molecular clouds who have low temperature and are inaccessible to ordinary observations. In addition, in our and other galaxies there are many planet-sized bodies that are not included in any of the circumstellar systems and therefore are not visible in telescopes. Part of the hidden mass of galaxies may belong to "extinguished" stars. According to another hypothesis, the galactic space (vacuum) also contributes to the amount dark matter. The hidden mass is not only in our galaxy, it is in all galaxies.

The problem of dark matter in astrophysics arose when it became clear that the rotation of galaxies (including our own Milky Way) cannot be correctly described if only the ordinary visible (luminous) matter contained in them is taken into account. All the stars of the Galaxy in this case would have to scatter and dissipate in the vastness of the Universe. In order for this not to happen (and this does not happen), the presence of additional invisible matter with a large mass is necessary. The action of this invisible mass is manifested exclusively when gravitational interaction with visible matter. At the same time, the amount of invisible matter should be approximately six times greater than the amount of visible matter (information about this is published in scientific journal Astrophysical Journal Letters). The nature of dark matter, as well as dark energy, the presence of which is assumed in the observable Universe, remains unclear.



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The Milky Way is a galaxy that contains the Earth, the solar system and all the individual stars visible naked eye. Refers to barred spiral galaxies.

The Milky Way, together with the Andromeda Galaxy (M31), the Triangulum Galaxy (M33) and more than 40 dwarf satellite galaxies - its own and Andromeda - form the Local Group of galaxies, which is part of the Local Supercluster (Virgo Supercluster).

Discovery history

Discovery of Galileo

The Milky Way revealed its secret only in 1610. It was then that the first telescope was invented, which was used by Galileo Galilei. The famous scientist saw through the device that the Milky Way is a real cluster of stars, which, when viewed with the naked eye, merged into a continuous faintly twinkling band. Galileo even succeeded in explaining the heterogeneity of the structure of this band. It was caused by the presence in the celestial phenomenon of not only star clusters. There are also dark clouds. The combination of these two elements creates an amazing image of the night phenomenon.

Discovery of William Herschel

The study of the Milky Way continued into the 18th century. During this period, his most active researcher was William Herschel. The famous composer and musician was engaged in the manufacture of telescopes and studied the science of the stars. The most important discovery Herschel became the Great Plan of the Universe. This scientist observed the planets through a telescope and counted them in different parts of the sky. Studies have led to the conclusion that the Milky Way is a kind of stellar island, in which our Sun is also located. Herschel even drew a schematic plan of his discovery. In the figure, the star system was depicted as a millstone and had an elongated irregular shape. The sun at the same time was inside this ring that surrounded our world. This is how all scientists represented our Galaxy until the beginning of the last century.

It was not until the 1920s that the work of Jacobus Kaptein saw the light of day, in which the Milky Way was described in the most detailed way. At the same time, the author gave a scheme of the star island, which is as similar as possible to the one that is known to us at the present time. Today we know that the Milky Way is a Galaxy, which includes the solar system, the Earth and those individual stars that are visible to humans with the naked eye.

What shape is the Milky Way?

When studying galaxies, Edwin Hubble classified them into different kinds elliptical and spiral. Spiral galaxies are disk-shaped with spiral arms inside. Since the Milky Way is disk-shaped along with spiral galaxies, it is logical to assume that it is probably a spiral galaxy.

In the 1930s, R. J. Trumpler realized that the estimates of the size of the Milky Way galaxy made by Kapetin and others were erroneous, because the measurements were based on observations using radiation waves in the visible region of the spectrum. Trumpler came to the conclusion that great amount dust in the plane of the Milky Way absorbs visible light. Therefore, distant stars and their clusters seem more ghostly than they really are. Because of this, in order to accurately image the stars and star clusters within the Milky Way, astronomers had to find a way to see through the dust.

In the 1950s, the first radio telescopes were invented. Astronomers have discovered that hydrogen atoms emit radiation in radio waves, and that such radio waves can penetrate dust in the Milky Way. Thus, it became possible to see the spiral arms of this galaxy. To do this, we used the marking of stars by analogy with marks when measuring distances. Astronomers realized that O and B stars could serve to achieve this goal.

Such stars have several features:

  • brightness– they are highly visible and often found in small groups or associations;
  • warmly– they emit waves of different lengths (visible, infrared, radio waves);
  • short life time They live for about 100 million years. Given the speed at which stars rotate at the center of the galaxy, they do not move far from their birthplace.

Astronomers can use radio telescopes to accurately match the positions of O and B stars and, based on the Doppler shifts in the radio spectrum, determine their speed. After performing such operations on many stars, scientists were able to produce combined radio and optical maps of the Milky Way's spiral arms. Each arm is named after the constellation that exists in it.

Astronomers believe that the movement of matter around the center of the galaxy creates density waves (regions of high and low density), just like you see when you mix cake dough with an electric mixer. These density waves are thought to have caused the spiral character of the galaxy.

Thus, viewing the sky in waves of different wavelengths (radio, infrared, visible, ultraviolet, X-ray) using various ground and space telescopes, you can get different images of the Milky Way.

Doppler effect. As well as alt As the fire engine's sirens become lower as the vehicle moves away, the movement of the stars affects the wavelengths of light that reach Earth from them. This phenomenon is called the Doppler effect. We can measure this effect by measuring the lines in the star's spectrum and comparing them to the spectrum of a standard lamp. The degree of Doppler shift indicates how fast the star is moving relative to us. In addition, the direction of the Doppler shift can show us the direction in which the star is moving. If the star's spectrum shifts to the blue end, then the star is moving towards us; if in the red direction, it moves away.

Structure of the Milky Way

If we carefully consider the structure of the Milky Way, we will see the following:

  1. galactic disk. Most of the stars in the Milky Way are concentrated here.

The disk itself is divided into the following parts:

  • The nucleus is the center of the disk;
  • Arcs - areas around the nucleus, including directly the areas above and below the plane of the disk.
  • Spiral arms are areas that protrude outward from the center. Our solar system is located in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way.
  1. globular clusters. Several hundred of them are scattered above and below the plane of the disk.
  2. Halo. This is a large, dim region that surrounds the entire galaxy. The halo consists of high temperature gas and possibly dark matter.

halo radius significantly more sizes disk and, according to some sources, reaches several hundred thousand light-years. The center of symmetry of the Milky Way halo coincides with the center of the galactic disk. The halo consists mainly of very old, dim stars. The age of the spherical component of the Galaxy exceeds 12 billion years. The central, densest part of the halo within a few thousand light-years of the center of the Galaxy is called bulge(translated from English "thickening"). The halo as a whole rotates very slowly.

Compared to halo disk spins much faster. It looks like two plates folded at the edges. The diameter of the disk of the Galaxy is about 30 kpc (100,000 light years). The thickness is about 1000 light years. The rotation speed is not the same at different distances from the center. It rapidly increases from zero in the center to 200-240 km/s at a distance of 2 thousand light years from it. The mass of the disk is 150 billion times the mass of the Sun (1.99*1030 kg). Young stars and star clusters are concentrated in the disk. There are many bright and hot stars among them. The gas in the disk of the Galaxy is unevenly distributed, forming giant clouds. Main chemical element in our galaxy is hydrogen. About 1/4 of it consists of helium.

One of the most areas of interest The galaxy is considered to be its center, or core located in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. Visible radiation The central regions of the Galaxy are completely hidden from us by powerful layers of absorbing matter. Therefore, it began to be studied only after the creation of receivers for infrared and radio radiation, which is absorbed to a lesser extent. The central regions of the Galaxy are characterized by a strong concentration of stars: there are many thousands of them in each cubic parsec. Closer to the center, there are areas of ionized hydrogen and numerous sources infrared radiation indicating that star formation is taking place there. At the very center of the Galaxy, the existence of a massive compact object is assumed - a black hole with a mass of about a million solar masses.

One of the most notable formations is spiral branches (or sleeves). They gave the name to this type of objects - spiral galaxies. Along the arms, the youngest stars are mainly concentrated, many open star clusters, as well as chains of dense clouds of interstellar gas in which stars continue to form. Unlike the halo, where any manifestations of stellar activity are extremely rare, the branches continue to fast paced life associated with the continuous transition of matter from interstellar space to stars and back. The spiral arms of the Milky Way are largely hidden from us by absorbing matter. Their detailed study began after the advent of radio telescopes. They made it possible to study the structure of the Galaxy by observing the radio emission of interstellar hydrogen atoms, which are concentrated along long spirals. By modern ideas, spiral arms are associated with compression waves propagating across the disk of the galaxy. Passing through the compression regions, the matter of the disk becomes denser, and the formation of stars from the gas becomes more intense. The reasons for the appearance of such a peculiar wave structure in the disks of spiral galaxies are not entirely clear. Many astrophysicists are working on this problem.

The place of the sun in the galaxy

In the vicinity of the Sun, it is possible to trace sections of two spiral branches that are about 3 thousand light years away from us. According to the constellations where these areas are found, they are called the Sagittarius arm and the Perseus arm. The sun is almost in the middle between these spiral arms. True, relatively close (by galactic standards) from us, in the constellation of Orion, there is another, not so pronounced branch, which is considered an offshoot of one of the main spiral arms of the Galaxy.

The distance from the Sun to the center of the Galaxy is 23-28 thousand light years, or 7-9 thousand parsecs. This suggests that the Sun is located closer to the edge of the disk than to its center.

Together with all nearby stars, the Sun revolves around the center of the Galaxy at a speed of 220–240 km/s, making one revolution in about 200 million years. This means that for the entire time of its existence, the Earth flew around the center of the Galaxy no more than 30 times.

The speed of rotation of the Sun around the center of the Galaxy practically coincides with the speed with which in this area a compression wave is moving, forming a spiral arm. Such a situation is generally unusual for the Galaxy: the spiral arms rotate at a constant angular velocity, like the spokes of a wheel, while the movement of stars, as we have seen, obeys a completely different pattern. Therefore, almost the entire stellar population of the disk either gets inside the spiral branch or leaves it. The only place where the speeds of stars and spiral arms coincide is the so-called corotation circle, and it is on it that the Sun is located!

For the Earth, this circumstance is extremely favorable. After all, violent processes occur in the spiral branches, generating powerful radiation, destructive for all living things. And no atmosphere could protect him from it. But our planet exists in a relatively quiet place in the Galaxy and has not experienced the influence of these cosmic cataclysms for hundreds of millions and billions of years. Perhaps that is why life could originate and survive on Earth.

For a long time, the position of the Sun among the stars was considered the most ordinary. Today we know that this is not the case: in in a certain sense it is privileged. And this must be taken into account when discussing the possibility of the existence of life in other parts of our Galaxy.

The location of the stars

On a cloudless night sky, the Milky Way is visible from anywhere on our planet. However, only a part of the Galaxy, which is a system of stars located inside the Orion arm, is accessible to the human eye. What is the Milky Way? The definition in space of all its parts becomes most understandable if we consider the star map. In this case, it becomes clear that the Sun, illuminating the Earth, is located almost on the disk. This is almost the edge of the Galaxy, where the distance from the nucleus is 26-28 thousand light years. Moving at a speed of 240 kilometers per hour, the Luminary spends 200 million years on one revolution around the core, so that for the entire time of its existence it traveled across the disk, rounding the core, only thirty times. Our planet is in the so-called corotation circle. This is a place in which the speed of rotation of the arms and stars are identical. For this circle typical elevated level radiation. That is why life, as scientists believe, could only arise on that planet, near which there is a small number of stars. Our Earth is such a planet. It is located on the periphery of the Galaxy, in its most peaceful place. That is why on our planet for several billion years there was no global cataclysms that often occur in the universe.

What will the death of the Milky Way look like?

The cosmic story of the death of our galaxy begins here and now. We can blindly look around, thinking that the Milky Way, Andromeda (our older sister) and a bunch of unknowns - our cosmic neighbors - this is our home, but in reality there is much more. It's time to explore what else is around us. Go.

  • Triangulum Galaxy. With a mass of about 5% of that of the Milky Way, it is the third largest galaxy in the Local Group. It has a spiral structure, its own satellites and may be a satellite of the Andromeda galaxy.
  • Large Magellanic Cloud. This galaxy is only 1% of the mass of the Milky Way, but is the fourth largest in our local group. It is very close to our Milky Way—less than 200,000 light-years away—and is undergoing active star formation as tidal interactions with our galaxy cause gas to collapse and create new, hot, and large stars in the universe.
  • Small Magellanic Cloud, NGC 3190 and NGC 6822. All of them have masses from 0.1% to 0.6% of the Milky Way (and it is not clear which one is larger) and all three are independent galaxies. Each of them contains over a billion solar mass material.
  • Elliptical galaxies M32 and M110. They may be "only" satellites of Andromeda, but each of them has more than a billion stars, and they can even exceed the masses of numbers 5, 6 and 7.

In addition, there are at least 45 other known galaxies- smaller - constituting our local group. Each of them has a halo of dark matter surrounding it; each of them is gravitationally attached to the other, located at a distance of 3 million light years. Despite their size, mass and size, none of them will remain in a few billion years.

So the main thing

As time passes, galaxies interact gravitationally. They not only pull together due to gravitational attraction, but also interact tidally. We usually talk about tides in the context of the Moon pulling terrestrial oceans and ebbs and flows, and this is partly true. But from the point of view of the galaxy, the tides are a less noticeable process. The part of a small galaxy that is close to a large one will attract more gravitational force, and the part that is further away will experience less attraction. As a result, the small galaxy will stretch out and eventually break apart under the influence of gravity.

Not large galaxies, which are part of our local group, including both Magellanic clouds and dwarf elliptical galaxies, will be torn apart in this way, and their material will be included in large galaxies with which they merge. “So what,” you say. After all, this is not quite death, because large galaxies will remain alive. But even they will not exist forever in this state. After 4 billion years, the mutual gravitational attraction The Milky Way and Andromeda will pull the galaxies into a gravitational dance that will lead to a big merger. Although this process will take billions of years, the spiral structure of both galaxies will be destroyed, resulting in the creation of a single, giant elliptical galaxy at the core of our local group: the Milkweeds.

A small percentage of the stars will be ejected during such a merger, but the majority will remain unharmed, and there will be a large burst of star formation. Eventually, the rest of the galaxies in our local group will also be sucked in, leaving one big giant galaxy to gobble up the rest. This process will proceed in all connected groups and clusters of galaxies throughout the Universe until dark energy will push individual groups and clusters from each other. But even this cannot be called death, because the galaxy will remain. And for a while it will be. But the galaxy is made up of stars, dust and gas, and everything will eventually come to an end.

Across the Universe, galactic mergers will take place over tens of billions of years. During the same time, dark energy will pull them all over the Universe to a state of complete solitude and inaccessibility. And although the last galaxies outside our local group will not disappear until hundreds of billions of years have passed, the stars in them will live. The longest-lived stars in existence today will continue to burn their fuel for tens of trillions of years, and new stars will emerge from the gas, dust, and stellar corpses that populate each galaxy—albeit with fewer and fewer.

When the last stars burn out, only their corpses will remain - white dwarfs and neutron stars. They will shine for hundreds of trillions or even quadrillions of years before they go out. When this inevitability happens, we will be left with brown dwarfs(failed stars) that accidentally merge, re-ignite nuclear fusion and create starlight for tens of trillions of years.

When, in tens of quadrillion years in the future, will the last star, there will still be some mass left in the galaxy. So this can not be called "true death."

All masses gravitationally interact with each other, and gravitational objects different masses exhibit strange properties when interacting:

  • Repeated "approaches" and close passes cause exchanges of speed and momentum between them.
  • Objects with low mass are ejected from the galaxy, and objects with more high weight plunge into the center, losing speed.
  • For enough long period time most of masses will be ejected, and only a small part of the remaining masses will be rigidly tied.

At the very center of these galactic remnants will be a supermassive black hole, in every galaxy, and the rest galactic objects will revolve around an enlarged version of our own solar system. Of course, this structure will be the last, and since the black hole will be as large as possible, it will eat everything it can reach. At the center of Mlecomeda there will be an object hundreds of millions of times more massive than our Sun.

But will it end too?

Thanks to the phenomenon of Hawking radiation, even these objects will one day decay. It will take about 10 80 to 10 100 years, depending on how massive our supermassive black hole becomes as it grows, but the end is coming. After that, the remains, rotating around the galactic center, will untie and leave only a halo of dark matter, which can also randomly dissociate, depending on the properties of this very matter. Without any matter, there will be nothing that we once called a local band, milky way and other dear names.

Mythology

Armenian, Arabic, Wallachian, Jewish, Persian, Turkish, Kyrgyz

One of Armenian myths about the Milky Way, the god Vahagn, the ancestor of the Armenians, stole straw from the ancestor of the Assyrians, Barsham, in a harsh winter and disappeared into the sky. When he walked with his prey across the sky, he dropped straws on his way; from them a light trail was formed in the sky (in Armenian “Straw thief’s road”). The myth about scattered straw is also spoken of by Arabic, Jewish, Persian, Turkish and Kyrgyz names (Kirg. samanchynyn jolu- the path of the strawman) of this phenomenon. The inhabitants of Wallachia believed that Venus stole this straw from St. Peter.

Buryat

According to Buryat mythology, good forces create the world, change the universe. Thus, the Milky Way arose from the milk that Manzan Gurme drew from her breast and splashed out after Abai Geser, who had deceived her. According to another version, the Milky Way is a "seam of the sky" sewn up after the stars fell out of it; on it, like on a bridge, tengri walk.

Hungarian

According to Hungarian legend, Attila will descend the Milky Way if the Székelys are in danger; the stars represent sparks from the hooves. Milky Way. accordingly, it is called the "road of warriors."

ancient greek

Etymology of the word Galaxias (Γαλαξίας) and its association with milk (γάλα) reveal two similar ancient Greek myths. One of the legends tells about the mother's milk spilled across the sky of the goddess Hera, who was breastfeeding Hercules. When Hera learned that the baby she was breastfeeding was not her own child, but the illegitimate son of Zeus and an earthly woman, she pushed him away, and the spilled milk became the Milky Way. Another legend says that the spilled milk is the milk of Rhea, the wife of Kronos, and Zeus himself was the baby. Kronos devoured his children, as it was predicted to him that he would be overthrown by his own son. Rhea has a plan to save her sixth child, the newborn Zeus. She wrapped a stone in baby clothes and slipped it to Kronos. Kronos asked her to feed her son one more time before he swallowed him. The milk spilled from Rhea's chest on a bare rock was subsequently called the Milky Way.

Indian

The ancient Indians considered the Milky Way to be the milk of an evening red cow passing through the sky. In the Rig Veda, the Milky Way is called Aryaman's Throne Road. The Bhagavata Purana contains a version according to which the Milky Way is the belly of a celestial dolphin.

Inca

The main objects of observation in Inca astronomy (which was reflected in their mythology) in the sky were the dark sections of the Milky Way - a kind of "constellation" in the terminology of Andean cultures: Lama, Lama Cub, Shepherd, Condor, Partridge, Toad, Snake, Fox; as well as the stars: the Southern Cross, the Pleiades, Lyra and many others.

Ketskaya

In the Ket myths, similarly to the Selkup ones, the Milky Way is described as the road of one of the three mythological characters: the Son of Heaven (Esya), who went to hunt west side the sky and there froze, the hero Albe, who pursued the evil goddess, or the first shaman Doha, who ascended this path to the Sun.

Chinese, Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese

In the mythologies of the Sinosphere, the Milky Way is called and compared to a river (in Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean and Japanese the name "silver river" is retained. The Chinese also sometimes called the Milky Way the "Yellow Road", after the color of the straw.

Indigenous peoples of North America

The Hidatsa and the Eskimos call the Milky Way "Ash". Their myths speak of a girl who scattered ashes across the sky so that people could find their way home at night. The Cheyenne believed that the Milky Way was dirt and silt raised by the belly of a turtle floating in the sky. Eskimos with Bering Strait- that these are the traces of the Crow-creator, walking across the sky. The Cherokee believed that the Milky Way was formed when one hunter stole another's wife out of jealousy, and her dog began to eat unattended cornmeal and scattered it across the sky (the same myth is found among the Khoisan population of the Kalahari). Another myth of the same people says that the Milky Way is the trail of a dog dragging something across the sky. The Ctunah called the Milky Way "the dog's tail", the Blackfoot called it the "wolf road". Wyandot myth says that the Milky Way is a place where the souls of dead people and dogs come together and dance.

Maori

In Maori mythology, the Milky Way is considered to be the Tama-rereti boat. The nose of the boat is the constellation Orion and Scorpio, the anchor is South Cross, Alpha Centauri and Hadar - rope. According to legend, one day Tama-rereti was sailing in his canoe and saw that it was already late, and he was far from home. There were no stars in the sky, and, fearing that Tanif might attack, Tama-rereti began to throw sparkling pebbles into the sky. The heavenly deity Ranginui liked what he was doing, and he placed the Tama-rereti boat in the sky, and turned the pebbles into stars.

Finnish, Lithuanian, Estonian, Erzya, Kazakh

The Finnish name is Fin. Linnunrata- means "The Way of the Birds"; the Lithuanian name has a similar etymology. Estonian myth also connects the Milky ("bird's") Way with bird flight.

The Erzya name is "Kargon Ki" ("Crane Road").

The Kazakh name is “Kus Zholy” (“Way of the Birds”).

Interesting facts about the Milky Way galaxy

  • The Milky Way began forming as a cluster of dense regions after big bang. The first stars to appear were in globular clusters that continue to exist. These are the oldest stars in the galaxy;
  • The galaxy has increased its parameters by absorbing and merging with others. Now she is picking stars from the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy and the Magellanic Clouds;
  • The Milky Way moves in space with an acceleration of 550 km / s with respect to the background radiation;
  • Lurking at the galactic center is the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A*. By mass, it is 4.3 million times greater than the solar one;
  • Gas, dust and stars revolve around the center at a speed of 220 km/s. This is a stable indicator, implying the presence of a shell of dark matter;
  • In 5 billion years, a collision with the Andromeda galaxy is expected.

The cosmos that we are trying to study is a vast and boundless space in which there are tens, hundreds, thousands of trillions of stars united in certain groups. Our Earth does not live on its own. We are part of solar system, which is a small particle and is part of the Milky Way - a larger cosmic formation.

Our Earth, like other planets of the Milky Way, our star named the Sun, like other stars of the Milky Way, move in the Universe in certain order and take their assigned seats. Let's try to understand in more detail what is the structure of the Milky Way, and what are the main features of our galaxy?

Origin of the Milky Way

Our galaxy has its own history, like other areas of outer space, and is the product of a catastrophe on a universal scale. The main theory of the origin of the universe, which today dominates in scientific community- Big Bang. The model that perfectly characterizes the Big Bang theory is the chain model. nuclear reaction at the microscopic level. Initially, there was some kind of substance, which, due to certain reasons, in an instant set in motion and exploded. It is not worth talking about the conditions that led to the onset of the explosive reaction. This is far from our understanding. Now formed 15 billion years ago as a result of a cataclysm, the Universe is a huge, endless polygon.

The primary products of the explosion were at first accumulations and clouds of gas. In the future, under the influence of gravitational forces and other physical processes there was the formation of larger objects of a universal scale. Everything happened very quickly by cosmic standards, over billions of years. First there was the formation of stars, which formed clusters and later coalesced into galaxies, the exact number of which is unknown. In its composition, galactic matter is hydrogen and helium atoms in the company of other elements that are building material for the formation of stars and other space objects.

It is not possible to say exactly where in the Universe the Milky Way is located, since the center of the universe is not exactly known.

Due to the similarity of the processes that formed the Universe, our galaxy is very similar in its structure to many others. This type is typical spiral galaxy, a type of object that is common in the universe in vast multitude. In terms of size, the galaxy is in the golden mean - not small and not huge. Our galaxy has many more smaller neighbors in a stellar home than those who are colossal in size.

The age of all galaxies that exist in outer space is the same. Our galaxy is almost the same age as the Universe and has an age of 14.5 billion years. During this vast period of time, the structure of the Milky Way has repeatedly changed, and this is happening today, only imperceptibly, in comparison with the pace of earthly life.

The history with the name of our galaxy is curious. Scientists believe that the name Milky Way is legendary. This is an attempt to connect the location of the stars in our sky with ancient Greek myth about the father of the gods Kronos, who devoured his own children. Last child, who was expected by the same sad fate, turned out to be thin and was given to the nurse for fattening. During feeding, splashes of milk fell into the sky, thereby creating a milk path. Subsequently, scientists and astronomers of all times and peoples agreed that our galaxy is really very similar to a milky road.

The Milky Way is currently in the middle of its development cycle. In other words, cosmic gas and matter for the formation of new stars are coming to an end. The existing stars are still quite young. As in the story with the Sun, which may turn into a Red Giant in 6-7 billion years, our descendants will observe the transformation of other stars and the entire galaxy as a whole into the red sequence.

Our galaxy may also cease to exist as a result of another universal cataclysm. Research topics recent years they are guided by the forthcoming meeting of the Milky Way with our closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy, in the distant future. It is likely that the Milky Way, after meeting with the Andromeda galaxy, will break up into several small galaxies. In any case, this will be the reason for the emergence of new stars and the reconstruction of the space closest to us. It remains only to guess what is the fate of the Universe and our galaxy in the distant future.

Astrophysical parameters of the Milky Way

In order to imagine what the Milky Way looks like on the scale of space, it is enough to look at the Universe itself and compare its individual parts. Our galaxy is part of a subgroup, which in turn is part of the Local Group, more major education. Here our space metropolis is adjacent to the Andromeda and Triangulum galaxies. Surrounding the trinity are more than 40 small galaxies. The local group is already part of an even larger formation and is part of the Virgo supercluster. Some argue that these are only rough guesses about where our galaxy is. The scale of formations is so huge that it is almost impossible to imagine all this. Today we know the distance to the nearest neighboring galaxies. Other deep sky objects are out of sight. Only theoretically and mathematically their existence is allowed.

The location of the galaxy became known only thanks to approximate calculations that determined the distance to the nearest neighbors. The satellites of the Milky Way are dwarf galaxies - the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds. In total, according to scientists, there are up to 14 satellite galaxies that make up the escort of the universal chariot called the Milky Way.

As for the observable world, today there is enough information about what our galaxy looks like. Existing Model, and with it the map of the Milky Way, compiled on the basis of mathematical calculations, data obtained as a result of astrophysical observations. Each cosmic body or fragment of the galaxy takes its place. It's like the universe, only on a smaller scale. interesting astrophysical parameters our space metropolis, and they are impressive.

Our barred spiral galaxy star charts denoted by the index SBbc. The diameter of the galactic disk of the Milky Way is about 50-90 thousand light years or 30 thousand parsecs. For comparison, the radius of the Andromeda galaxy is 110 thousand light years on the scale of the universe. One can only imagine how much larger the Milky Way is our neighbor. The dimensions of those closest to the Milky Way dwarf galaxies ten times smaller than the parameters of our galaxy. Magellanic clouds have a diameter of only 7-10 thousand light years. In this huge stellar cycle, there are about 200-400 billion stars. These stars are collected in clusters and nebulae. A significant part of it is the arms of the Milky Way, in one of which our solar system is located.

Everything else is dark matter, clouds of cosmic gas and bubbles that fill interstellar space. The closer to the center of the galaxy, the more stars, the tighter it gets space. Our Sun is located in a region of space, consisting of smaller space objects located at a considerable distance from each other.

The mass of the Milky Way is 6x1042 kg, which is trillions of times the mass of our Sun. Almost all the stars that inhabit our stellar country are located in the plane of one disk, the thickness of which, according to various estimates, is 1000 light years. It is not possible to know the exact mass of our galaxy, since most of visible spectrum stars hidden from us by the arms of the Milky Way. In addition, the mass of dark matter that occupies vast interstellar spaces is unknown.

The distance from the Sun to the center of our galaxy is 27 thousand light years. Being on the relative periphery, the Sun is rapidly moving around the center of the galaxy, making a complete revolution in 240 million years.

The center of the galaxy is 1000 parsecs in diameter and consists of a core with an interesting sequence. The center of the nucleus has the shape of a convexity, in which biggest stars and accumulation of hot gases. It is this region that releases a huge amount of energy, which in aggregate is more than the billions of stars that make up the galaxy radiate. This part of the core is the most active and brightest part of the galaxy. Along the edges of the core there is a jumper, which is the beginning of the arms of our galaxy. Such a bridge arises as a result of the colossal force of gravity caused by the rapid rotation of the galaxy itself.

Considering central part galaxy, the following fact looks paradoxical. Scientists long time could not figure out what was at the center of the Milky Way. It turns out that in the very center of a starry country called the Milky Way, a supermassive black hole has settled down, the diameter of which is about 140 km. It is there that most of the energy released by the core of the galaxy goes, it is in this bottomless abyss that the stars dissolve and die. The presence of a black hole at the center of the Milky Way indicates that all processes of formation in the Universe must someday end. Matter will turn into antimatter and everything will repeat again. How this monster will behave in millions and billions of years, the black abyss is silent, which indicates that the processes of absorption of matter are only gaining momentum.

Two main arms of the galaxy extend from the center - the Shield of the Centaur and Perseus. These names structural formations received according to the constellations located in the sky. In addition to the main arms, the galaxy is surrounded by 5 more small arms.

Near and distant future

Arms born from the core of the Milky Way unwind in a spiral, filling with stars and space material space. Here is an analogy with space bodies that revolve around the Sun in our star system. A huge mass of stars, large and small, clusters and nebulae, space objects different sizes and nature, spinning on a giant carousel. All of them create a wonderful picture of the starry sky, which a person has been looking at for more than one thousand years. When studying our galaxy, you should know that the stars in the galaxy live according to their own laws, being in one of the arms of the galaxy today, tomorrow they will start their journey in the other direction, leaving one arm and flying into another.

Earth in the Milky Way galaxy is far from the only planet fit for life. This is just a particle of dust, the size of an atom, which was lost in the vast stellar world of our galaxy. There can be a huge number of such planets similar to Earth in the galaxy. It is enough to imagine the number of stars that in one way or another have their stellar planetary systems. Other life may be far away, at the very edge of the galaxy, tens of thousands of light years away, or, conversely, be present in neighboring regions that are hidden from us by the arms of the Milky Way.