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Capture the cosmos > Galaxies > Dig deeper (cont'd) > Fast Facts: Milky Way Galaxy
| Name | The Milky Way Galaxy |
| Description | The Milky Way Galaxy is home to our solar system. We see the plane of the Galaxy as a band of light stretching across the night sky. The Galaxy is a barred spiral containing about 200 billion stars |
| Age | The oldest known stars are 13 billion years old |
| Location | The solar system is located within the Milky Way Galaxy on a branch called the Orion Spur |
| Distance from Earth to the galactic center |
26,000 light years in the direction of Sagittarius |
| Diameter | 100,000 light years across |
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Artist's conception of the spiral structure of the Milky Way with two major and two minor stellar arms and a central bar. |
Capture the cosmos > Galaxies > Dig deeper (cont'd) > Fast Facts: Milky Way Galaxy