Where does the name of our galaxy, the Milky Way, come from?  Why?
964790
The Greeks came up with the name which in English is "Milky Way", but every culture had a name for it -- it's pretty conspicuous, after all.  \n\nThe Greek story is kind of goofy, but this is it: the goddesses Athena and Hera (goddesses of wisdom and married life, respectively) were out for a walk and came across what seemed to be an abandoned infant.  (Actually, it was the just-born Herakles [Hercules in Latin], whose mother Hera hated.  Athena had planted the child there.  Now go on with the story:)\n\n"Oh, the poor thing!" said Athena.  "Come, Hera, give it your breast!"  For Hera, being the Great Mother, was constantly in milk even though she herself was seldom pregnant.  Anyway, she did so, and Herakles sucked her nipple so powerfully that she yelped with pain and pulled him away.  When she did so a spurt of her milk flew into the sky and that's what caused the Milky Way.\n\nWell, I told you it was a goofy story, didn't I?  BTW a mouthful of the goddess' milk was enough to make Herakles immortal, so Hera never did manage to off the poor guy, though she made his life miserable.
5355
No one knows.\n\nThere are about 10 planets in our solar system, depending on whom you ask.\n\nAround 100 planets have been detected in other solar systems.\n\nThere are at least 200 billion stars in the Milky Way Galaxy (ours).\n\nIf the average number of planets per star is 10, then there are 2000 billion or 2 trillion planets in our galaxy.\n\nNo one knows how many billion galaxies are in the Universe.
59422
Our “address” is: \n\nThe third planet of the star “Sol”, which is the name of the sun. \n\nSol is about 27,000 light years from the center of the Milky Way galaxy, on the inner rim of the “Orion Arm”. The Milky Way galaxy—our galaxy—has four “spiral arms”. An “arm” of a galaxy is a very huge arc of stars that extend out from the center of the galaxy in a long spiral. \n\nThe "Milky Way" galaxy is in the “Local Group”. Galaxies are clustered into groups of galaxies, with wide areas of semi-nothingness between the groups. We have named the group of which our galaxy is part the “Local Group” for obvious reasons. \n\nThe “Local Group” is part of the “Virgo Supercluster”. A supercluster is a cluster of groups of galaxies. \n\nThe “Virgo Supercluster” is one of many clusters and superclusters in the known universe. There is no “official name” of our universe, since it is the only universe of which we know. It is therefore usually just called “the universe”. \n\nOur address is therefore the third planet of the star Sol, on the inner rim of the Orion Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, in the Local Group of galaxies, within the Virgo Supercluster, in "the universe". \n\nNow that you know the address, from whom are you expecting mail?
1161939
This is difficult to answer.  Is there a galaxy destroyed everytime I clean my fingernails?\n\nI don't feel we have a good measure of what a galaxy is, our galaxy seems huge, yet we know very little about the boundaries (i.e. what if there were another galaxy right next to ours that we could not reach, like we were different slices of bread, intimately close, yet forever separated)
763882
A galaxy is a swirling collection of stars. our own Milky Way galaxy contains hundreds of billions of stars, of which our sun is only one amongst these billions and billions.\n\nA solar system is just a single sun that has planets revolving around it. A galaxy is made up of billions of such suns. And some scientists believe that as many as 25% of the stars could have planets. That means billions and billions of solar systems in our own galaxy.\n\nHere'a a picture of our closest neighbor, the Andromeda galaxy. It has close to one-trillion stars.\n\nHope this heolps. Cheers\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andromeda_Galaxy
440062
The universe contains approximately  200,000,000,000,000,000,000 (200 BILLION BILLION) stars in galaxies scattered throughout the universe.  Our solar system is located in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way galaxy.  The Milky Way galaxy contains approx. 200,000,000,000 stars.  \n\nThe universe is the largest of the three organizational structures in your question.  \n\nHope this helps!
777198
the Milky Way is a galaxy
529349
In our galaxy it would be Pluto, but in other galaxies I'm sure its a planet that has never been discovered yet.\n\nEdited to add: No I meant galaxy - as in The Milky Way. I didn't mention the new 'planet' as it hasn't been approved as one yet.\n\nAnd ps next time get the name right! ;)
1073938
Well dear....we aren't centrally placed in our milky way galaxy.....our solar system lies at a distance of about 30,000 light years from its centre....and we don't know the extremities of our universe yet hence our position with respect to the universe can't be measured..
697966
the sun moves,  like the planets around the sun our solar system moves with all the other 100-BILLION stars around the center or our galaxy,  the motions and speeds are unoticable cuase of the massive distances between us and all object around us\n\nEDIT - to gizmo WRONG,  the center of our galaxy is occupied by a Super-Massive Black Hole,  we are 26,000 light-years from the galactic center.  and a comparison,  there is 4.5 light-years of empty space between us and our closest system alpha-centurie.  at the galactic center the distances between the stars is on average like the distance between the sun and saturn-neptune.   that 10,000 times closer then the sun to alpha-centurie.  nice try though
20577
"The Milky Way (a translation of the Latin Via Lactea, in turn derived from the Greek Galaxia Kuklos (meaning milky way)) traditionally refers to the a hazy band of white light across the celestial sphere, formed by stars within the disc of its namesake galaxy (the plane of the Milky Way)."\n\nThere are (unfortunately) many answers to your question:\n\n"There are numerous legends in many traditions around the world regarding the creation of the Milky Way. In particular, there are two similar ancient Greek stories, that explain the etymology of the name Galaxias (Γαλαξίας) and its association with milk (γάλα). One legend describes the Milky Way as a smear of milk, created when the baby Herakles suckled from the goddess Hera. When Hera realized that the suckling infant was not her own but the illegitimate son of Zeus and another woman, she pushed it away and the spurting milk became the Milky Way.\n\nAnother story tells that the milk came from the goddess Rhea, the wife of Cronus, and the suckling infant was Zeus himself. Cronus swallowed his children to ensure his position as head of the Pantheon and sky god, and so Rhea conceived a plan to save her newborn son Zeus: She wrapped a stone in infant's clothes and gave it to Cronus to swallow. Cronus asked her to nurse the child once more before he swallowed it, and the milk that spurted when she pressed her nipple against the rock eventually became the Milky Way.\n\nOlder mythology associates the constellation with a herd of dairy cows/cattle, whose milk gives the blue glow, and where each cow is a star. As such, it is intimately associated with legends concerning the constellation of Gemini, with which it is in contact. Firstly, with Gemini, it may form the origin of the myth of Castor and Polydeuces, concerning cattle raiding. Secondly, again with Gemini, but also with other features of the Zodiac sign of Gemini (i.e. Canis Major, Orion, Auriga, and the deserted area now regarded as Camelopardalis), it may form the origin of the myth of the Cattle of Geryon, one of The Twelve Labours of Herakles.\n\nPeoples in Eastern Asia believed that the hazy band of stars was the "Silvery River" of Heaven. Also, the stars Altair and Vega were said to be two lovers, who were allowed to meet only once a year on the seventh day of the seventh month, when a flock of magpies and crows formed a bridge over the galactic river. That day is celebrated as 七夕, (literally the Seventh Night,) called Qi Xi in Chinese, Tanabata in Japanese, and Chilseok in Korean."
3031
The universe is big enough to contain over 100 billion galaxies, of which the Milky Way is one. It is also expanding. Since it is growing larger, it can't be infinite, since infinitely-sized things can't become larger than infinity.
1171072
Not at all.  The Milky Way, Andromeda and a few other galaxies are in the "local group".  The galaxies in this group orbit around each other.  Just like our planets.  At times some planets will be seen to recede from us and at other times they will be getting closer as all go along in their respective orbits.
530869
If you mean our Solar system (there's other suns with planets revolving around them) then our Solar System is in our Galaxy...The Milky Way.
927930
Look up "the nebular hypothesis".  you also are confusing the Milky Way (a disk shaped system of a hundred billion stars or so of which our sun is a part) and the Solar System (our sun and its surrounding planets and other assorted detritus.)\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_nebula
577859
Someone just added an extra "e" in it.\n\nOur Solar System is in a Galaxy called the Milky Way. The Milky Way comprises stars and other material lying within a galactic plane. Relative to the celestial equator, the Milky Way passes as far north as the constellation of Cassiopeia and as far south as the constellation of Crux, indicating the high inclination of Earth's equatorial plane and the plane of the ecliptic relative to the galactic plane.\n\nThe fact that the Milky Way divides the night sky into two roughly equal hemispheres indicates that the solar system lies close to the galactic plane.\n\nThe main disk of the Milky Way Galaxy is about 80,000 to 100,000 light years in diameter, about 250-300 thousand light years in circumference, and outside the Galactic core, about 1,000 light years in thickness. It is composed of 200 to 400 billion stars.
150284
"The Local Group (also called M31 group or the Andromeda group) is the group of galaxies that includes our galaxy, the Milky Way. The group comprises over 30 galaxies, with its gravitational center located somewhere between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. The galaxies of the Local Group cover a 10 million light year diameter (see 1 E23 m for distance comparisons). The group belongs to the Virgo Supercluster."