Physical Cosmology

While the universe is filled to the brim with galaxies, there's only one that we call home: the Milky Way galaxy. It's its own little universe, if you will, containing hundreds of billions of stars, dust and gas, all held in place by gravity. If you want to see it, just look up at the night sky. When the night is clear enough, the fuzzy patch of light stretching across the sky is the band of the Milky Way. In fact, almost all of what you see up there is part of our galaxy. Closer to the present moment, though, if you want to see more of the Milky Way, just step through this gallery.

All imagery © HowStuffWorks or their respective copyright Holder.