The Milky Way is badly mislabeled by the naked eye. Across a dark sky, its pale band can resemble a stain, yet it is a barred spiral galaxy containing hundreds of billions of stars, gas clouds, dust, and dark matter bound within one gravitational system.Its center gets too much attention. The Solar System does not sit near that crowded core; it occupies the Orion Spur, a smaller structure within t...More