Today we are talking about our galactic neighborhood: the Milky Way. It is a disk galaxy, a collection of dust, gas and hundreds of billions of stars, with the Sun located halfway in the center. The disk has large spiral patterns, formed by the jams of stars and nebulae, where stars are born. The central region is bar-shaped and mostly made up of old red stars. There is also a halo of old stars surrounding us.

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Chapters:
Introduction: The Milky Way 00:00
What is the Milky Way? 1:15
The shape of the Milky Way 2:18
Spiral arm of the Milky Way 4:08
Mapping the Milky Way 7:15
Outer halo of the Milky Way 9:09
Review 10:07
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PHOTOS/VIDEOS
Milky Way, artist's drawing http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/spitzer/multimedia/20080603a.html [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]
Joshua Tree http://deepskycolors.com/astro/2013/04/2013-04_JoshuaTree_MW.jpg [credit: Rogelio Bernal Andreo]
Mosaic of the central region of the Milky Way http://sguisard.astrosurf.com/Pagim/GC.html [credit: ESO]
New Hubble image of the star cluster Messier 15 http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic1321a/ [credit: NASA, ESA]
Artist's impression of the Milky Way http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hubblecast70b/ [credit: ESA/Hubble and M. Kornmesser]
M83 (Hubble only and Hubble-Subaru-ESO Composite) http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/M83-New-HST.html [credit: Robert Gendler, Subaru 8.2 meter telescope (NAOJ), European Southern Observatories, Hubble Legacy Archive ]
Hubble's largest galaxy portrait offers new high-definition view http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2006/10/image/a/ [credit: NASA, ESA, K. Kuntz (JHU), F. Bresolin (University of Hawaii), J. Trauger (Jet Propulsion Lab), J. Mold (NOAO), Y.-H. Chu (University of Illinois, Urbana) and STScI]
NGC 3344 http://skycenter.arizona.edu/gallery/Galaxies/NGC3344 [credit: Adam Block/Mount Lemmon SkyCenter/University of Arizona]
Annotated Milky Way http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/wise/20150603/spitzer20150603.jpg [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]
Black hole with corona, X-ray source (artist's concept) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_hole#/media/File:Black_Holes_-_Monsters_in_Space.jpg [credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech]
A galaxy and its halo http://www.esa.int/spaceinimages/Images/2008/06/A_galaxy_and_its_halo [credit: ESA (image by C. Carreau)]
How to become a star http://www.eso.org/public/images/eso0102a/ [credit: ESO]

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