The term “The Milky Way” was in common use in Western astronomy 2,500 years ago, and there is no way of knowing who coined it and how it originated. It is one of those terms so old that its origin is now generally forgotten
Our galaxy, the “Milky Way”, is known by different names around the world, as it is called in China the name “Silver River” and it is called the “backbone of the night” in the Kalahari desert in South Africa, while the Arabs called it the “Milky Way” and in other languages it is called ” The Milky Way, but how did the Milky Way galaxy get its name for the first time and who did it, and what is the secret behind choosing those names?
According to the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), the galaxy is called the “Milky Way,” a translation of the Greek expression Galaxias Kiklos, meaning milky circle.
And the site “Space” (Space), that this name came from the galaxy’s apparent milky white appearance that stretches across the night sky.
As for the Arabic name “Milky Way”, it came as a result of likening the galaxy to a white road made of hay like what cattle drop behind while carrying it on their backs, and thus its effect appears on the ground as twisted arms similar to the arms of the galaxy.
At the time, no one knew that what they were seeing in the dark night sky was a tuft of millions of separate stars that make up a small part of the galaxy in which our solar system resides.
Milky Way
The Milky Way is estimated to be 13.2 billion years old, and it is one of billions of galaxies in the known universe. Other galaxies may be larger and more ancient, but the Milky Way has long fascinated humans. It was recognized by astronomers thousands of years ago and mythologized by ancient civilizations.
According to Live Science (Live Science), our galaxy is 100,000 light-years in diameter and is thought to contain at least 100 billion stars and possibly 400 billion or more. It is a spiral galaxy with 4 main arms. Our sun and solar system sits on a small structure known as the Orion Arm, about 26,000 light-years from the center of the Milky Way.
The name “Milky Way” came as a result of likening the galaxy to a white road of hay like that dropped by cattle behind it (Shutterstock)
But how and when did this galaxy get its name?
Matthew Stanley, professor of the history of science at New York University, tells WebMD.Live ScienceScientific It is not clear exactly when the name appeared. But early references to the Milky Way can be traced back to the ancient Greeks (800 BC to 500 BC).
“The term was in common use in Western astronomy 2,500 years ago,” says Stanley, referring to stargazers in European countries, so there’s no way of knowing who coined it and how it came about. It is one of those terms so ancient that its origin is now generally forgotten.
Stanley added that the Milky Way provided astronomers with the Greek root for the astronomical term “galaxy”, and the word (Galactos) literally means “the milky thing in the sky”.
Although the first astronomers may have noticed the Milky Way, they did not know what it was until the Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei directed his telescope to the sky in 1609, and discovered that some of the puzzling cosmic dust clouds that everyone had observed before consisted of stars close together.
How are galaxies named?
Scientists estimate that there are 100 billion to 200 billion galaxies in the known universe, so it will be difficult to obtain descriptive names such as Andromeda, the Milky Way, and others for each of them, so the vast majority of galaxies are named with a number followed by one or more letters, such as “M51” and “GN-z11”. ″ and “IOK-1.” The numbers following the letter names may indicate either the order in the list or the location of the galaxy in the sky.
The US Space Agency website states (NASA) that for galaxies that are given descriptive names such as “Andromeda” they are usually particularly distinctive in location or appearance.
The Andromeda Galaxy is so named because it is located in the Andromeda constellation (Shutterstock)
Most of the galaxies were named in the list drawn up by astronomer Charles Messier, and they are among the oldest in the field of observing objects in the sky. Messier was searching for comets in the 18th century AD, but he continued to find things other than comets that seemed mysterious so he created an index These things and listed their locations so as not to be deceived again and think they are guilty.
A number of the mysterious objects Messier spotted were later identified as galaxies. However, Messier’s cataloging system was completed in a random way, so you will find that M1 (the Cancer nebula in the constellation Taurus) is nowhere near M2 (a globular cluster in Aquarius).
As the capacity of telescopes grew, major lists were created such as the New General Catalog NGC, which is one of the oldest lists of nebulae and star clusters. It was published by Danish astronomer John Louis Emil Dreyer in 1888 and is still widely used.
In the NGC list, objects in the sky are numbered from west to east, so that all objects in the same region of the sky have similar numbers.
Andromeda also bears the designation “Messier 31” because it is the 31st object in Messier’s list (Shutterstock)
Why multiple names of one galaxy?
According to “Universe Today” (universetoday), there are many names for one galaxy. For example, the Andromeda Galaxy is named by this name because it is located in the Andromeda constellation. Many galaxies are named after the constellation in which they are located.
Andromeda is also named M31, or Messier 31, since it is the 31st object on Messier’s list of comet-like objects that are not comets. Andromeda is also classified as “NGC 224” in the NGC list.
There are also specialized lists that describe objects in other wavelengths, such as x-rays and even gamma rays. Many galaxies will have names in those lists, so a galaxy can have many names, it just depends on which name you want to use and the context in which it comes in.
In the event that you discover a new galaxy, you cannot name it after you or call it any other name you want, because the International Astronomical Union maintains the official names of astronomical objects.
