Milky Way Facts for Kids – 5 Interesting Facts About The Milky Way

Have you ever thought about travelling to space? Here are five interesting Milky Way facts for kids to check before going there.

Milky Way Facts for Kids Fact Number 1: The Milky Way has an Invisible Halo

The Milky Way is the Earth’s galaxy and it is mostly made up of dark matter. This is a matter that we can not see. The rest of the Milky Way is made up of “luminous matter”, which is matter that can be seen. It is the dark matter that creates an invisible halo around the Milky Way.

Milky Way Facts for Kids Fact Number 2: The Milky Way was Made from other Galaxies

The Milky Way is the size it is today because it has consumed many other galaxies in the past, such as the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy. It is estimated that in its roughly 13 billion year history, the Milky Way has consumed at least 6 other galaxies but this figure could be even more! Currently it is eating up the galaxy that is closest to it, the Canis Major Dwarf Galaxy.

Milky Way Facts for Kids Fact Number 3: There is a Black Hole at The Centre

At the centre of the Milky Way there is a supermassive black hold called Sagittarius A. It is estimated that this black hole has a diameter of 14 million miles, which is about 2,000 times as long as The Diameter of Earth. This is just the black hole itself, the outer disk of Sagittarius A is over 4 millions times the mass of our Sun. The Milky Way’s black hole is roughly 26,000 light years away from Earth.

Milky Way Facts for Kids Milky Way Facts for Kids Fact Number 4: We can’t Take Photos of The Whole Milky Way

Yes, we can see part of the Milky Way from Earth, but we have never seen a whole complete photo of the Milky Way itself. There are no real photos of the full Milky Way out there simply because the Milky Way Galaxy is too big. For this reason we can only take pictures of the Milky Way from inside the galaxy, which means we don’t have an image of the Milky Way as a whole. Pictures that you have seen of the whole Milky Way are either another galaxy or illustrations of what scientists think the Milky Way looks like from what photos we have of it.

Fact Number 5: The Milky Way is Moving

Everything in space, including the Milky Way, is constantly moving. The Milky Way is a part of the Local Group of galaxies, which is a cluster of galaxies and includes the Andromeda Galaxy, the Messier 33 and other dwarf galaxies. It is estimated that the Milky Way is moving at about 600 kilometres per second, which is roughly 2.2 million kilometres per hour!. That is about six times as fast as a bolt of Lightning!

We hope you enjoyed learning more things about Milky Way as much as we loved teaching you about them. Now that you know how majestic this Milky Way is, you can move on to learn about the planets in our Milky Way like: Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune.

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