We live in the Milky Way galaxy.

Quick Scoop: Short Answer

  • The name of the galaxy we live in is the Milky Way.
  • It is a barred spiral galaxy containing over 100 billion stars, including our Sun.

What galaxy do we live in?

Astronomers classify our home galaxy as the Milky Way Galaxy, often just called “the Milky Way.” Earth, the Sun, and the rest of our solar system all orbit within one of its spiral arms.

Fast facts about the Milky Way

  • Type: Barred spiral galaxy.
  • Size: About 100,000 light‑years across and roughly 1,000 light‑years thick in the disk.
  • Stars: At least 100–200 billion stars.
  • Age: Around 13.6 billion years.
  • Location of the Sun: In a spiral arm (the Orion Arm/Orion Spur) about 26,000 light‑years from the galactic center.

What’s at the center of our galaxy?

In the middle of the Milky Way sits a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A* (“A‑star”). It has a mass of roughly four million Suns and is surrounded by a dense bulge of old stars, gas, and dust.

You can picture the Milky Way like a glowing spiral pancake with a fat central bulge and a dark, massive heart (Sagittarius A*) in the middle.

Where are we inside the Milky Way?

  • Our solar system orbits the galactic center roughly once every 225–250 million years.
  • We sit in the Milky Way’s disk, in a minor spiral feature between two larger arms.

Tiny address in a huge city

If the universe were a city of galaxies, the Milky Way would be one big city block, and our solar system would be a tiny neighborhood far from downtown. We are not near the center; we’re out in the suburbs of the galaxy.

Extra tidbit: “Milky Way” name

The name “Milky Way” comes from its pale, milky band of light across our night sky, which is the combined glow of countless distant stars in the galactic disk. Many ancient cultures described this glowing band long before telescopes revealed it as a galaxy.

TL;DR: We live in the Milky Way galaxy, a large barred spiral galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars, with our solar system sitting in one of its spiral arms far from the center.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.