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The Milky Way is a vast barred spiral galaxy that serves as the cosmic anchor for our solar system and billions of other stars. Spanning approximately 100,000 light-years in diameter, it consists of a central bulge surrounded by a thin disk of gas, dust, and stars arranged in majestic spiral arms. At its very heart lies Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole with a mass equivalent to about four million suns. As we look up at the night sky, the faint, glowing band we see is actually the collective light from countless distant stars situated along the galaxy’s dense plane, reminding us that we are just a small part of a massive, swirling island of matter in the universe.