What is the Milky Way? The Milky Way is the galaxy in which we live. It is a spiral shaped galaxy that contains about 200 billion stars, including our Sun. It is about 100,000 light-years across and about 10,000 light-years thick. If you are at a place which has a very dark night sky, you can sometimes see the Milky Way as a thick band of stars in the sky. We live near the edge of the Milky Way.