what is the thickness of the milky way
Milky Way The Milky Way is the second-largest galaxy in the Local Group, with its stellar disk approximately 100,000 ly (30 kpc) in diameter, and, on average, approximately 1,000 ly (0.3 kpc) thick.[4][5] As a guide to the relative physical scale of the Milky Way, if the Solar System out to Neptune were the size of a US quarter (24.3 mm (0.955 in)), the Milky Way would be approximately the size of the continental United States.[42] A ring-like filament of stars wrapping around the Milky Way may belong to the Milky Way itself, rippling above and below the relatively flat galactic plane.[27] If so, that would mean a diameter of 150,000–180,000 light-years (46–55 kpc).[43]
Milky Way The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter between 100,000[30] and 180,000 light-years (ly).[31] The Milky Way is estimated to contain 100–400 billion stars.[32][33] There are probably at least 100 billion planets in the Milky Way.[34][35] The Solar System is located within the disk, about 26,000 light-years from the Galactic Center, on the inner edge of the Orion Arm, one of the spiral-shaped concentrations of gas and dust. The stars in the inner ≈10,000 light-years form a bulge and one or more bars that radiate from the bulge. The very center is marked by an intense radio source, named Sagittarius A*, which is likely to be a supermassive black hole.