世界各地有許多創造天地的神話圍繞著銀河系發展出來。很特別的是，在希臘就有兩個相似的希臘神話故事在解釋銀河是怎麼來的。有些神話將銀河和星座結合在一起，認為成群牛隻的乳液將深藍色的天空染白了。在東亞，人們相信在天空中群星間的霧狀帶是銀色的河流，也就是所謂天河。

At the beginning of its visibility period, the Galactic Center may be witnessed shortly in advance of sunrise. Eventually, it will become obvious for longer durations Just about every night time, As well as in June-July the Main is noticeable all night extensive from equally hemispheres.

Almost every galaxy — like our Milky Way — contains a supermassive black hole at its center, by using a mass starting from millions to billions of periods that on the Sunlight. Astronomers are still finding out why black holes so usually reside for the hearts of galaxies.

雖然從非常久遠的古代，人們就認識銀河。但是對銀河系的真正認識還是從近代才開始。

A analyze in 2020 concluded that Gaia detected a wobbling motion in the galaxy, which might be because of "torques from the misalignment on the disc's rotation axis with regard to the principal axis of a non-spherical halo, or from accreted make a difference while in the halo obtained through late infall, or from close by, interacting satellite galaxies and their consequent tides".

This galactic cannibalism continues currently; even now, the Milky Way is devouring smaller companions such as the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. About billions of decades, this kind of mergers have shaped the galaxy’s progress and composition.

Significantly earlier mentioned and underneath the galactic disk lies the halo, a sparse but massive region made up of ancient stars and globular clusters. Some clusters are a lot more than 12 billion years aged, virtually as aged since the universe alone.

Photograph on the "Good Andromeda Nebula" from 1899, later on recognized because the Andromeda mawinbet Galaxy In 1904, studying the appropriate motions of stars, Jacobus Kapteyn described that these were not random, as it was considered in that point; stars could possibly be divided into two streams, shifting in almost reverse Instructions.

銀河系 → 銀河系亞群 → 本星系群 → 本星系板 → 室女超星系團 → 拉尼亞凱亞超星系團 → 雙魚-鯨魚座超星系團複合體 → 可觀測宇宙 → 宇宙（箭號「→」表示「屬於」或「包含於」。）

Because the Milky Way seems to us as being the prolonged stripe throughout the sky, this means its condition is more most likely a disk we see edge-on. We can also discover the bulge at the middle, and from observing the opposite galaxies, we realize that the spiral ones are disks with central bulges.

Have you ever looked up on the evening sky and questioned with regard to the hazy band of sunshine that stretches throughout it? That’s the Milky Way, our dwelling galaxy!

Additional alongside, you would face massive clusters of very hot, youthful stars. Some will be many hundreds of instances additional huge when compared to the Sunlight, shining with intense brilliance nonetheless destined to die in mere countless several years—cosmic fireflies in comparison with the Sunshine’s continual ten-billion-calendar year lifestyle.

All-around this black gap, stars dance in a fancy gravitational ballet. Some full orbits in just a few many years, transferring so rapidly that their paths have offered direct evidence on the black hole’s existence.

This came like a surprise: In accordance with common cosmology, satellite galaxies really should variety in dim make any difference halos, and they must be greatly dispersed and transferring in random Instructions. This discrepancy continues to be not described.[289]