We live in the Milky Way Galaxy.
Sometimes, on dark, clear nights, you can see part of the Milky Way as a cloudy, or milky, river of stars in the night sky.
Our solar system happens to be on the edge of the galaxy, the Sun is about 30,000 light-years from the center, so we are able to see a pretty good side view.
If we were able to view our galaxy from far away, it would look like a huge swirl of stars, with a center shaped like the yolks of two floating fried eggs stuck back-to-back.
This center is called the nuclear bulge.
We can’t see or photograph the whole galaxy from the outside, but pictures of other galaxies similar to ours help us to understand the Milky Way.
The Andromeda Galaxy, some 2.2 million light-years away, is thought to be almost a twin of the Milky Way.
The Milky Way looks something like two fried eggs stuck back-to-back.
The yolks would be the nuclear bulge and galactic halo, or the spherical region around the galaxy.
The whites would be the spiraling arms.
