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When we look at the sky, there is a line where there is way more stars than usual. This line goes all the way around the sky. This was called the milky way by the Greeks because it was like a road sparkled with milk drops. At some point, we deduced that we were in a group of stars arranged in a flat disk. Later, we realized that some weird space clouds (nebulae) were much further away than we thought and were actually other huge groups of stars like our own that we named galaxies, still after milk.
There are more details me course. Even along the line in the sky drawn by the milky way, there is one side where there is much more stars and dust than the other. We deduced that we were at the edge of the disk and the bright region was the center of our galaxy. Also, the amount of gas and dust that block certain types of light that teach us that our galaxy has arms.
That's definitely the more PG-13 version of why the ancient Greeks called it the Milky Way lol. Alternate version from Wikipedia:
In Greek mythology, Zeus places his son born by a mortal woman, the infant Heracles, on Hera's breast while she is asleep so the baby will drink her divine milk and thus become immortal. Hera wakes up while breastfeeding and then realizes she is nursing an unknown baby: she pushes the baby away, some of her milk spills, and it produces the band of light known as the Milky Way.
That is surprisingly tame by ancient Greece standards.
Like the birth of Aphropdite, where Cronus cuts Uranus' dick off and throws it in the sea, and she grows out of the foam it leaves behind.
Not in the famous painting for some reason lol.
That’s a lot more PG-13 than I thought it was gonna be
Zeus pounds three cans of red bull and throws some Playboy flicks on his CRT, proceeds to spray galactic milk all over the universe
That's a very specific metaphor.
I didn't know the story, thanks a lot!
Great explanation, I finally get it! thank you
Great explanation, although I want to clarify that not all nebulae are galaxies. Nebulas are massive clouds of dust and gas that are found within galaxies. Other galaxies were previously thought to be nebulas in space outside of the Milky Way, called extragalactic nebulae. However, in the early 1900s it was proven that these were actually other galaxies and not nebulas, so the term is no longer used.
While there are nebulae in other galaxies, they are not easily visible to us, so the word nebula generally refers to those contained within the Milky Way.
Thanks! I added "some nebulae" to remove any misunderstanding
Which other galaxies are named after milk?
The word galaxy itself comes from the old Greek word for milk, so all galaxies are named after milk.
Cool. I was trying to figure out if there was a bovine with the root word Andromeda in it. Because there are dromedary animals. But even do that only got me as far as one Galaxy.