The Milky Way

Paper Summary:

This paper provides an overview of the Milky Way galaxy, named for the hazy band of light that stretches across the dark skies of the night. It looks at how, although this system (usually referred to as a spiral galaxy, much like the Andromeda galaxy) has created much wonder and awe since the beginning of human civilization, it was not until 1610 that its true nature was discovered by Galileo when he turned his small refracting telescope toward the night sky to reveal that the Milky Way was composed of countless individual stars, nebula and other astronomical bodies, many of which remained mysterious and unknown well into the 20th century.

From the Paper:

"Looking from the Earth at the Milky Way, one obtains two distinct views--first, in the direction of the poles, the density of the stars decreases dramatically, meaning that at the poles, the stars are far apart and are set against a very dark background. Second, looking along the equatorial plane, the closest stars are situated against a faint but luminous band, being "the blended light of billions of stars in the galaxy's disc. In 1785, astronomer William Herschel, by using a 48-inch reflector telescope of his own construction, counted the stars in more than 600 regions of the sky and concluded that "the majority are concentrated along a plane and that the galaxy is disc-shaped with the Sun at its center" (Parker, 1988, 156). "

Sample of Sources Used:

• Parker, Brian. (1988). Creation: The Story of the Origins of the Universe. New York:Plenum Press.
• Pasachoff, James. (1990). Astronomy: From the Earth to the Universe. Orlando, FL:Saunders College Publishing.
• Verschur, George. (1990). Interstellar Matters. Belmont, MA: Sky Publishing.

More papers on The Milky Way:

• Research Paper # 121272 : "Planetary Science"
• Analytical Essay # 23590 : "Black Holes and Space"
• Essay # 23630 : "Formation of Stars"

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