An editor has nominated this article for deletion. You are welcome to participate in the deletion discussion , which will decide whether or not to retain it. |
This list of names for the Milky Way are in various languages. Some of them derive from myths, which can be found at Milky Way (mythology).
Before galaxies in the modern sense were discovered, in Europe "the Galaxy" was another name for the Milky Way.
The Kaurna people of the Adelaide Plains of South Australia called the Milky Way wodliparri in the Kaurna language, meaning "house river". [9] The Gomeroi people between New South Wales and Queensland called the Milky Way Dhinawan, the giant Emu in the Sky that it stretches across the night sky. [10]
The name "Birds' Path" is used in several Uralic and Turkic languages and in the Baltic languages. Northern peoples observed that migratory birds follow the course of the galaxy [11] while migrating at the Northern Hemisphere. The name "Birds' Path" (in Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Bashkir and Kazakh) has some variations in other languages, e.g. "Way of the grey (wild) goose" in Chuvash, Mari and Tatar and "Way of the Crane" in Erzya and Moksha.
Many European languages have borrowed, directly or indirectly, the Greek name for the Milky Way, including English and Latin.
The Milky Way was traditionally used as a guide by pilgrims traveling to the holy site at Compostela, hence the use of "The Road to Santiago" as a name for the Milky Way. [4] Curiously, La Voje Ladee "The Milky Way" was also used to refer to the pilgrimage road. [12]
The Sanskrit name "River Ganga of the Sky" (आकाशगंगाĀkāśagaṃgā) is used in many Indian languages following a Hindu belief .
The Chinese name "Silver River" (銀河) is used throughout East Asia, including Korea and Vietnam. In Japan and Korea, "Silver River" 銀河 (Ginga) means galaxies in general.
The Japanese name for the Milky Way is the "River of Heaven" (天の川), as well as an alternative name in Chinese (Chinese :天河; pinyin :Tiān hé).
In West Asia, Central Asia and parts of the Balkans the name for the Milky Way is related to the word for straw. Today, Persians, Pakistanis, and Turks use it in addition to Arabs. It has been suggested that the term was spread by medieval Arabs who in turn borrowed it from Armenians. [13]
In England the Milky Way was called the Walsingham Way in reference to the shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham which is in Norfolk, England. It was understood to be either a guide to the pilgrims who flocked there, or a representation of the pilgrims themselves. [14]
Scandinavian peoples, such as Swedes, have called the galaxy Winter Street (Vintergatan) as the galaxy is most clearly visible during the winter at the northern hemisphere, especially at high latitudes where the glow of the Sun late at night can obscure it during the summer.
Santiago de Compostela, simply Santiago, or Compostela, is the capital of the autonomous community of Galicia, in northwestern Spain. The city has its origin in the shrine of Saint James the Great, now the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, as the destination of the Way of St. James, a leading Catholic pilgrimage route since the 9th century. In 1985, the city's Old Town was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Andromeda is one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd-century Greco-Roman astronomer Ptolemy, and one of the 88 modern constellations. Located in the northern celestial hemisphere, it is named for Andromeda, daughter of Cassiopeia, in the Greek myth, who was chained to a rock to be eaten by the sea monster Cetus. Andromeda is most prominent during autumn evenings in the Northern Hemisphere, along with several other constellations named for characters in the Perseus myth. Because of its northern declination, Andromeda is visible only north of 40° south latitude; for observers farther south, it lies below the horizon. It is one of the largest constellations, with an area of 722 square degrees. This is over 1,400 times the size of the full moon, 55% of the size of the largest constellation, Hydra, and over 10 times the size of the smallest constellation, Crux.
James the Great was one of the Twelve Apostles of Jesus. According to the New Testament, he was the second of the apostles to die, and the first to be martyred. Saint James is the patron saint of Spain and, according to tradition, his remains are held in Santiago de Compostela in Galicia.
The Magellanic Clouds are two irregular dwarf galaxies in the southern celestial hemisphere. Orbiting the Milky Way galaxy, these satellite galaxies are members of the Local Group. Because both show signs of a bar structure, they are often reclassified as Magellanic spiral galaxies.
The Camino de Santiago, or in English the Way of St. James, is a network of pilgrims' ways or pilgrimages leading to the shrine of the apostle James in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia in northwestern Spain, where tradition holds that the remains of the apostle are buried.
Ponferrada is a city of Spain, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. Ponferrada, the second most populated municipality of the Province of León, is also the capital city of El Bierzo, the only comarca recognized as an administrative entity by law in the region.
Iriy, Vyrai, Vyriy, or Irij is a mythical place in Slavic mythology where "birds fly for the winter and souls go after death" that is sometimes identified with paradise. Spring is believed to have arrived on Earth from Vyrai.
Night on the Galactic Railroad, sometimes translated as Milky Way Railroad, Night Train to the Stars or Fantasy Railroad in the Stars, is a classic Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa written around 1927. The nine-chapter novel was posthumously published by Bunpodō (文圃堂) in 1934 as part of Complete Works of Kenji Miyazawa Vol. 3 (『宮沢賢治全集』第三巻). Four versions are known to be in existence, with the last one being the most famous among Japanese readers.
There are many myths and legends about the origin of the Milky Way, the crowd of stars that makes a distinctive bright streak across the night sky.
The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye. The term Milky Way is a translation of the Latin via lactea, from the Greek γαλαξίας κύκλος, meaning "milky circle". From Earth, the Milky Way appears as a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. Galileo Galilei first resolved the band of light into individual stars with his telescope in 1610. Until the early 1920s, most astronomers thought that the Milky Way contained all the stars in the Universe. Following the 1920 Great Debate between the astronomers Harlow Shapley and Heber Doust Curtis, observations by Edwin Hubble showed that the Milky Way is just one of many galaxies.
The Codex Calixtinus is a manuscript that is the main witness for the 12th-century Liber Sancti Jacobi, a pseudepigraph attributed to Pope Calixtus II. The principal author or compiler of the Liber is thus referred to as "Pseudo-Calixtus", but is often identified with the French scholar Aymeric Picaud. Its most likely period of compilation is 1138–1145.
The Camino de Santiago, also known as the Way of St. James, extends from different countries of Europe, and even North Africa, on its way to Santiago de Compostela and Finisterre. The local authorities try to restore many of the ancient routes, even those used in a limited period, in the interest of tourism.
The Milky Way is a 1969 comedy-drama film directed by Luis Buñuel. It stars Paul Frankeur, Laurent Terzieff, Denis Manuel, and Daniel Pilon, and features the likes of Alain Cuny, Michel Piccoli, and Delphine Seyrig in its ensemble cast. Buñuel later called The Milky Way the first in a trilogy about "the search for truth."
Foncebadón is a Spanish village in the municipality of Santa Colomba de Somoza, in the province of León.
Path of Miracles is an extended choral composition by Joby Talbot, written in 2005 following a commission from the vocal chamber group Tenebrae. Under the direction of Nigel Short, Tenebrae's first performance was scheduled for 7 July 2005 in London, but was delayed because of the bombings that took place in the city that day. The City of London Festival quickly rescheduled the event, and the world premiere took place on 17 July 2005 at St. Bartholomew-the-Great Church in London.
The Ponte Taboada, Puente Taboada or Taboada Bridge, is a 10th century Romanesque stone bridge over the river Deza in the Silleda Municipality on the Province of Pontevedra, Spain. The bridge is part of the Silver Way of the Camino de Santiago
The Laniakea Supercluster is the galaxy supercluster that is home to the Milky Way and approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies.
The Primitive Way is one of the paths of the Camino de Santiago. It begins in the old Asturian capital of Oviedo and runs west to Lugo and then south to Santiago de Compostela joining the more popular French Way in Melide for the last two hiking days. According to the Confraternity of St James, the Camino Primitivo is approximately 320 km in length.
Night on the Galactic Railroad is a 1985 Japanese anime film directed by Gisaburo Sugii, based on the 1934 fantasy novel of the same name by Kenji Miyazawa. The film's screenplay was written by Minoru Betsuyaku. Its plot follows a young cat named Giovanni, who journeys on a train with his classmate Campanella through the Milky Way galaxy.
The Routes of Santiago de Compostela: Camino Francés and Routes of Northern Spain is a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in Spain. It was designated in 1993, and later expanded and renamed in 2015. The complete site includes a network of five traditional pilgrimage routes of the Way of Saint James as it passes through Northern Spain: the popular French Way, the Primitive Way, the Northern or Coastal Way, the Interior Way and the Liébana Route; as well as 16 of the most "culturally significant" individual structures, including religious and civil buildings.