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The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy spanning over 100,000 light-years across and containing an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars. It is thought to have formed more than 13.6 billion years ago, not long after the Big Bang. The galaxy rotates once every 225 to 250 million years in what is known as a cosmic year. Its disk is about 1,000 light-years thick, and its central bulge is home to a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*, which has a mass roughly four million times that of the Sun. Most of the mass in the Milky Way is invisible dark matter, which does not emit or absorb light. The Sun and solar system are located about 27,000 light-years from the galactic center, in a minor arm known as the Orion Spur. The Milky Way is surrounded by a halo of old stars and globular clusters and is part of a small group of galaxies called the Local Group, which includes the Andromeda Galaxy and about 50 other smaller systems. The galaxy appears as a luminous band in Earth’s night sky due to the dense concentration of stars along its plane. Milky Way Galaxy is a music channel inspired by the scale and structure of our home in the universe.