Professional Documents
Culture Documents
This is a drawing of the Milky Way looking down from above. The evidence for this picture is provided below.
The Sun is just one of 200 billion stars in this typical barred-spiral galaxy that is about 90 000 light years in
diameter.
alternative names being used for the spiral arms. This table lists some of the alternative names:
Common Name Alternative Name
Norma Arm
3 kiloparsec Arm
Scutum-Crux Arm Centaurus Arm
Sagittarius Arm Sagittarius-Carina Arm
Orion Arm
Local Arm
Perseus Arm
Cygnus Arm
Outer Arm
Note also that the Orion Arm is not a major spiral arm, but only an enhancement of stars and gas between the
Sagittarius and Perseus arms.
It should be emphasized that there are almost as many stars between the spiral arms as in the spiral arms.
The reason why the arms of spiral galaxies are so prominant is that the brightest stars are found in the spiral
arms. Spiral arms are the major regions of star formation in spiral galaxies and this is where most of the
major nebulae are found.