What is the Milky Way?

The Milky Way is the Galaxy in which we live. It is a spiral shaped galaxy that contains several hundred 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 out in the suburbs of the Milky Way - not near the center, but not near the edge either.