We earthlings are part of a galaxy called 'Milky Way'. Sun revolves around this galaxy along with Earth and other planets of the solar system. Far from the city, you can see the Milky Way in the unpolluted sky of the village. The moon has not risen or even if the brightness is very low, if you observe on such a night, you will see a line extending from head to head in the sky.

the milky way

A long line of many stars and the stars in this line are also bright. It seems that this line or system surrounds the entire sky, this is the Milky Way Galaxy. Better to say part of the Milky Way. But the question is why the name of the galaxy? Why is the galaxy named after the food? And there is so much milk or milk or why?

Galaxies are usually not named like this. As new galaxies, stars and planets are discovered, they are named scientifically. However, there are some galaxies or stellar objects, which even the ancients were able to identify separately.

They may not have known that the galaxy is actually a collection of many stars. But he understood that they are different from other ordinary stars in the sky. They gave different names to these special objects living in the sky.

They considered these objects in the sky as gods and goddesses and named them accordingly. The planet we know as Venus was Venus, the goddess of love and beauty. There is a galaxy called Andromeda, named after a goddess in Greek mythology. The scientific name of the Andromeda Galaxy is M31. Similarly, the name of the Milky Way also comes from mythology.

In Greek mythology, the king of the gods is Zeus and his wife Hera. Unbeknownst to Hera, the god Zeus developed a relationship with a mortal woman. A boy was born in that woman's womb. This child's name is Hercules. According to Puranas, celestial gods and goddesses are immortal, and mortals are mortal. The father is immortal and a god, while the mother is mortal and ordinary. In this struggle, Hercules did not become immortal, did not become mortal, did not become human, did not become a god. Read in the middle.

But there is a path open to becoming a full god and immortal. If Hercules was mothered and nursed by Hera, the goddess of the sky, he would become immortal. At the same time you will get the respect of God. That's why god Zeus took his child to the sky. But the goddess Hera, the wife of Zeus, sat down. Zeus, who cheated on her and had a child with a mortal man, would never feed him with her own milk.

Seeing no way out, Zeus thought of another approach. When Hera was asleep, she took the opportunity to milk Hercules. While sleeping while nursing, Hera eventually awoke and quickly weaned her breast from baby Hercules. Due to haste, at the moment of weaning, some milk spilled from the breast and spread across the sky.

If milk is placed in a large container and a small hole is made in it, the milk will flow in a long stream through the hole. Small milk particles will crackle and spread to form a white-white system. This is exactly what happened with the milk of goddess Hera. White-white milk crackles. This channel or road created from milk was called by the people of that time 'Milky Way' or 'Milky Way'. But the story is completely mythical. It has no factual basis.

The name Milky Way comes from the Roman word. The Romans named this galaxy Via Lactea. It means road of milk. But the Romans were not the first to give such a name. The Romans derive the word from the Greek word Galaxias kyklos. It means milky circle. It is natural to imagine such a story for the Milky Way Galaxy. Because, it looks quite bright and somewhat milky. The system is also very long. There are seven or eight other galaxies, like the Milky Way, whose names are such exceptions.

The Milky Way Galaxy has a different name in each region. Because it can be seen from all over the world. Therefore, it is natural that people from different areas who are separated from each other will have different names. In India, the name of the galaxy is 'Milky Way'. To the sky watchers of ancient India, it looked like a river. According to their belief, Ganga exists simultaneously in the mortal world and the celestial world. The 'Akashganga' of the sky and the 'Ganga' of the earth flow in the same direction. That is why the river Ganga is highly respected in traditional religion.

The part that the Milky Way was named after is not actually the entire Milky Way, just a small part. The Milky Way Galaxy is spiral. Its diameter is about one hundred thousand light years. If one were to travel 300,000 kilometers per second for 24 hours without a break, it would take 100,000 years to travel from end to end of the Milky Way. If people had known about the original spiral shape and extent of this galaxy, it seems unlikely that it would have been named 'Milky Way'.