Word Smith: Milky Way
According to Wikipedia [1], the Milky Way is a galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy’s appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galaxy, which are so far away that they cannot be individually distinguished by with the naked eye.
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a D25 isophotal diameter estimated at 26.8 ± 1.1 kiloparsecs (87,400 ± 3,600 light-years), but only about 1,000 light-years thick at the spiral arms (more at the bulge). Recent simulations suggest that a dark matter area, also containing some visible stars, may extend up to a diameter of almost 2 million light-years (613 kpc). The Milky Way has several satellite galaxies and is part of the Local Group of galaxies, forming part of the Virgo Supercluster which is itself a component of the Laniakea Supercluster.
It is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars and at least that number of planets. The Solar System is located at a radius of about 27,000 light-years (8.3 kpc) from the Galactic Center, on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas and dust. The stars in the innermost 10,000 light-years form a bulge and one or more bars that radiate from the bulge. The Galactic Center is an intense radio source known as Sagittarius A*, a supermassive black hole of 4.100 (± 0.034) million solar masses. The oldest stars in the Milky Way are nearly as old as the Universe itself and thus probably formed shortly after the Dark Ages of the Big Bang.
Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Doust Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble in 1923 showed that the Milky Way was just one of many galaxies.
The Origin of The Milky Way
Origin of the Milky Way, by Jacopo Tintoretto in the National Gallery, London
One of four paintings based on the myth of Hercules, Tintoretto’s The Origin of the Milky Way depicts the god Jupiter bringing his son, born of a mortal woman, to nurse from the breast of his wife, the goddess Juno. In a composition which anticipates the drama of Baroque painting, the artist creates a scene of flustered activity depicting the moment Juno awakens to discover Jupiter’s deceit.
According to myth, the infant Heracles would obtain immortality through breastfeeding from the goddess. However, as she awakes, Juno draws away in anger causing her milk to spray across the sky, thus forming the Milky Way indicated by an array of stars. From her other breast, milk falls toward Earth resulting in the creation of beautiful lilies, believed to be part of the original composition (later trimmed down). Below the immortal couple, numerous cupids with bows drawn, symbolize the marital discord and its universal consequences.
The work provides visible proof of Tintoretto’s skill as both a draughtsman and colorist. The foreshortening of Jupiter is reminiscent of Giotto’s groundbreaking frescos in the Arena Chapel, the muscular Juno the influence of Michelangelo, but the rhythmic arrangement of figures is uniquely Tintoretto. Nichols describes how the expert use of color in both the figures and attire relates to Tintoretto’s childhood exposure to pigments in his father’s workshop as a cloth dyer. He writes, “immediately noticeable are the range and quality of the pigments used: the composition is built up from a carefully variegated palette which moves from intense blue to grey in the sky, and from white and gold through to orange, pink and scarlet in the draperies.”
References:
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
[2] https://stevala.pressbooks.sunycreate.cloud/chapter/tintoretto-the-origin-of-the-milky-way/
Henry E. Hooper 