The Milky Way Button for link to Chinese version of this page
The Milky Way. The Milky Way is the galaxy in which our sun travels. It is about 80,000 light years across, and about 2,500 light years thick. It contains about 300 billion stars. “Different parts have different ages. The oldest parts of the Milky Way are at 11-13 billion years old, and the disk of the Milky Way is 6-11 billion years old.” (Kurtis Williams’ talk at the Age of the Milky Way Workshop in July of 2007).
Links about the Milky Way:
  1. NASA’s Origins Education Forum has a discussion of galaxy formation.
  2. The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere’s 2004 press release about the age of the Milky Way Galaxy.
  3. Frommert & Kronberg’s web pages on The Milky Way Galaxy.
  4. The Nicolas Dauphas method for calculating the age of the Milky Way Galaxy.
  5. Some materials from the Age of the Milky Way Workshop held in July 2007.
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