The origin of the Milky Way's name

The name Milky Way is commonly used in Western astronomers 2,500 years ago.

If you look up at the clear sky at night, you will see a wide range of stars hidden in the cloud of dust and gas in the arc across the sky. This is part of the Milky Way, or the Milky Way . It has a diameter of 100,000 light years and an age of about 13.2 billion years, according to Live Science.

Astronomers discovered the Milky Way thousands of years ago. Many ancient civilizations refer to the Milky Way in their myths. But the question that many people wonder is why the Milky Way is called the Milky Way.

Ovid, the Roman poet, once described the Milky Way in his work "The Metamorphoses" first published in 8th year AD. The content of the book is about a bright band that is most visible when the sky is called the Milky Way.

The Milky Way glows in the night sky at La Silla Observatory, Chile.(Photo: ESO).

According to Matthew Stanley, professor of history of science at New York University, USA , called " Milky Way" is mentioned the earliest by ancient Greeks around 800 to 500 BC. But so far, scientists have not been able to determine exactly when this name came into being.

"The term Milky Way is commonly used in Western astronomers 2,500 years ago. So there is no way to know who was the first to name the Milky Way . Milky Way is a long term term. so much so that its origin is almost forgotten , " Stanley said.

The Greek myth of the formation of the Milky Way is shown in the painting "The Origin of the Milky Way" by Renaissance artist Jacopo Tintoretto in 1575. This painting is being saved. Hold at National Gallery, London, England.

Tintoretto's work is based on a version of the story that appeared in the folklore "Geoponica" in the 10th century. Legend describes that Zeus placed his newborn baby Hercules next to his sleeping wife, a goddess. Hera let Hercules suck milk. Unaware, Hera woke up, accidentally letting his milk flow into the sky creating the Milky Way.

Before the telescope came into existence in the early 17th century, galaxies known as nebulae, cloudy regions were not the same as other objects such as stars and planets. It all changed when Galileo Galilei, an Italian astronomer, used his telescope to observe the sky in 1609. He discovered cosmic dust clouds are a collection of many nearby stars. together. Currently, the total number of galaxies detected by humans is estimated at 200 billion.