A Delhi Police officer stretches during a rehearsal for the upcoming Republic Day parade on a foggy winter morning in New Delhi, India on January 4, 2024. (Photo by Sahiba Chawdhary/Reuters)
British TV personality and actress Ekin-Su Cülcüloğlu, former Love Islander on February 23, 2024. Commissioned by Fabulous Magazine and shot by Mark Hayman. (Photo by News Group Newspapers Limited)
Beatriz Hatz, of the U.S., competes at Women's Long Jump -T64 final at the Stade de France stadium, during the 2024 Paralympics, Saturday, August 31, 2024, in Paris, France. (Photo by Emilio Morenatti/AP Photo)
Mural of wartime leader Sir Winston Churchill wearing stockings and suspenders and giving the “V” sign by illusive local artist who goes by the name Horace, on the side of the Sandpiper guest house in Brighton on November 22, 2020. (Photo by Gareth Fuller/PA Images via Getty Images)
A plane leaves Qatar Airport as the sun rises behind the Mosque at Souq Waqif in Doha, Qatar on Friday, December 9, 2022. (Photo by Peter Byrne/PA Images via Getty Images)
Photograph of model Aly Dunne dressed in Gianfranco Ferre' design taken by Italian photographer Gian Paolo Barbieri in Milan, Italy, 1992. (Photo by Gian Paolo Barbieri/Fondazione Gian Paolo Barbieri/29 ARTS IN PROGRESS gallery/Handout via Reuters)
Behind the scenes at Rock it Out, a circus show fusing live music and death-defying stunts in West Thurrock, Essex on April 10, 2025. They will attempt a British first: a double somersault on a rotating wheel. (Photo by Jeff Moore)
The Milky Way is the galaxy in which Earth is contained. This name derives from its appearance as a dim “milky” glowing band arching across the night sky, in which the naked eye cannot distinguish individual stars. The term “Milky Way” is a translation of the Classical Latin via lactea, from the Hellenistic Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος (pr. galaxías kýklos, “milky circle”). The Milky Way appears like a band because it is a disk-shaped structure being viewed from inside. The fact that this faint band of light is made up of stars was proven in 1610 when Galileo Galilei used his telescope to resolve it into individual stars. In the 1920s, observations by astronomer Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.