Galaxies

Parts of the Galaxy

The Galaxy
The Central Bulge
The Thin Disk
Solar Neighbourhood
Orbits
Spiral Arms
The Thick Disk
The Halo
The Dark Halo
Star Populations

The stars in the thin disk move round the central bulge in nearly circular orbits.

All the material in the thin disk travels along more or less together. The disk rotates as a unit around the centre of the galaxy. At the Sun's distance from the centre, one rotation takes about 200 million years.


Milky Way Graphic by Lucas Leslie, Yr 9 student, ESC, May 2000