Milky Way

American  

[mil-kee way] / ˈmɪl ki ˈweɪ /

noun

Astronomy.

1. the spiral galaxy containing our solar system: with the naked eye it appears as a faint luminous band stretching across the heavens, composed of approximately a trillion stars, most of which are too distant to be seen individually.

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Milky Way British  

noun

1. the diffuse band of light stretching across the night sky that consists of millions of faint stars, nebulae, etc, within our Galaxy

2. another name for the Galaxy

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Milky Way Scientific  

/ mĭl′kē /

1. The spiral galaxy that contains our solar system. Made up of an estimated two hundred billion stars or more, it is seen from Earth as an irregular band of hazy light across the night sky. The solar system is located in one of the revolving spiral arms, about 50 light-years north of the galactic plane and some 27,700 light-years from the galaxy's center, which lies in the direction of the constellation Sagittarius. It takes approximately 250 million years for the solar system to orbit the galactic center, which is believed to contain a massive black hole. The Milky Way measures about 100,000 light-years in diameter and is the second largest galaxy, after the Andromeda Galaxy, in the cluster known as the Local Group.

2. See also spiral galaxy

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Milky Way Cultural  

1. The galaxy to which our sun belongs.

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Discover More

The Milky Way is also the swath of light in the night sky produced by the other stars in the galaxy.

Etymology

Origin of Milky Way

First recorded in 1350–1400; Middle English, translation of Latin via lactea; cf. galaxy

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

Milky Way

Mr. Silvertown calculates that at their seasonal high point there are a thousand times more leaves in one type of British grassland than there are stars in the Milky Way galaxy.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 16, 2026

What makes the finding especially significant is that the same 2% threshold has already been linked to jet formation in much smaller black holes within our own Milky Way galaxy.

From Science Daily ● Oct. 16, 2026

He said the "trigger moment" for his lifelong interest in astronomy was seeing the Milky Way in the night sky when he was 10.

From BBC ● Oct. 11, 2026

IceCube has been fully operational since 2011 and has detected high-energy neutrinos from a distant galaxy in the direction of the constellation Orion, as well as from our own Milky Way.

From Barron's ● Oct. 6, 2026

Was it possible, they wondered, that they were seeing the Milky Way and M31 from the other direction—like seeing the back of your head with light that has circumnavigated the universe?

From "Cosmos" by Carl Sagan

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