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Galactic Navigation
The Milky Way
Suppose you are looking directly at the Milky Way galaxy. You are looking at the
galactic plane. Imagine a flying saucer. It looks like a disk with a bulge in the
middle. This is basically the shape of the Milky Way galaxy. The galactic plane
is the part of the Milky Way which is in the "saucer" part of the shape. Much of
what you see in the night sky is on the galactic plane of the Milky Way. This is
because these stars are closer to us than stars in other galaxies; therefore,
they seem brighter.
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