milky way

treeseed commented on the word milky way

Earth is located in the Milky Way Galaxy.

Visible from Earth as a hazy band of white light that is seen in the night sky, arching across the entire celestial sphere, the visual phenomenon of the Milky Way (as seen in the night sky) originates from stars and other material which lies within the galactic plane.

The Milky Way looks brightest in the direction of the constellation of Sagittarius, toward the galactic center. Relative to the celestial equator, it passes as far north as the constellation of Cassiopeia and as far south as the constellation of Crux, indicating the high inclination of Earth's equatorial plane and the plane of the ecliptic relative to the galactic plane. The fact that the Milky Way divides the night sky into two roughly equal hemispheres indicates that our Solar System lies close to the galactic plane. The Milky Way has a relatively low surface brightness, making it difficult to see from any urban or suburban location suffering from light pollution.

Some sources hold that, strictly speaking, the term Milky Way should refer exclusively to the observation of the band of light, while the full name Milky Way Galaxy, or alternatively the Galaxy should be used to describe our galaxy as an astrophysical whole.

_Wikipedia

February 11, 2008

johnmperry commented on the word milky way

a popular candy bar distributed by the Mars candy company. The American version of the Milky Way bar is made of chocolate-malt nougat topped with caramel and covered with milk chocolate and is similar to the European Mars bar. The European Milky Way bar, on the other hand, is not topped with caramel and is therefore similar to the American 3 Musketeers bar.

July 25, 2008