The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. It appears from Earth as a hazy band of light across the night sky, formed by countless stars so distant they cannot be individually seen with the naked eye
. It is classified as a barred spiral galaxy, roughly 100,000 light-years in diameter and about 1,000 light-years thick at the spiral arms. The Milky Way contains an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars and at least as many planets
. Our Solar System is located about 25,000 to 27,000 light-years from the Galactic Center, situated on the inner edge of one of the spiral arms called the Orion Arm
. At the center of the Milky Way lies a supermassive black hole known as Sagittarius A*, with a mass of about 4 million times that of the Sun
. The galaxy is part of a larger group called the Local Group and belongs to the Virgo Supercluster, itself a component of the even larger Laniakea Supercluster
. The Milky Way is about 13.6 billion years old, nearly as old as the Universe itself
. Its spiral shape results from its rotation, and if viewed from above or below, it would resemble a spinning pinwheel
. The name "Milky Way" comes from its milky appearance in the sky, a name rooted in ancient myths and various cultural interpretations worldwide
. In summary, the Milky Way is a vast, spinning barred spiral galaxy containing billions of stars, including our Sun, along with gas, dust, and dark matter, forming the cosmic home of our Solar System
