Milky Way
In OpenSpace, broadly includes anything outside the Solar System but within the Milky Way Galaxy.
The local stars that make up the night sky form a basis for these data sets, and we fill out the galaxy with exoplanets, star clusters, stellar remnants, and gaseous nebulae, among other objects.
The bountiful universe. Here we see the Milky Way Galaxy with many of the Milky Way data sets turned on—the zoo of objects that we find in the Galaxy. In the sections below, we will explore each of these, one-by-one, and gain a basic understanding of what these objects are and what they mean for our understanding of the universe.
Note
The term Milky Way takes on two meanings in astronomy. Originally, it referred to that band of light we see in the night sky. Later, as we understood the nature of the universe, it referred to the galaxy that we live in.
Here, we will refer to that band of light as the Milky Way, and the 3-D galaxy as the Milky Way Galaxy, or just Galaxy (in uppercase).