If you look up on a clear night from a darksky location, you might see the Milky Way as a faint band of thousands of stars. But these sparkling lights are just a tiny fraction of our cosmic neighborhood.
Our galaxy is an incomprehensibly vast place containing nearcountless objects, including stars, exoplanets, nebulas and black holes — all trapped in a giant spinning disk. It is also constantly changing as old stars violently explode in supernovas and new systems are born from giant clouds of cosmic dust.
Despite having surveyed this colossal structure for centuries, we are also still learning new things about our incredible galaxy, such as how it recycles stellar material and where it fits into the wider universe.
So how well do you know the Milky Way? Let’s test your knowledge of our galaxy’s size, age, speed and more with the 15 questions below. Remember to log in to put your name on the leaderboard and click the yellow button if you need a hint.
—Mars quiz: Is your knowledge of the Red Planet out of this world?
—Solar system quiz: How well do you know our cosmic neighborhood?
—Black hole quiz: How supermassive is your knowledge of the universe?
