{"id":961,"date":"2004-11-15T14:04:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-15T13:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/the_milky_way\/"},"modified":"2026-10-08T00:34:15","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T22:34:15","slug":"the_milky_way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/the_milky_way\/","title":{"rendered":"De Melkweg"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"lede\">\n<p>Wij leven in \u00e9\u00e9n van de armen van een groot, spiraalvormig sterrenstelsel dat we de Melkweg noemen. De Zon en de planeten (waaronder de Aarde) liggen in dit rustige deel van de Melkweg, ongeveer halverwege uit het centrum.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>De Melkweg heeft de vorm van een enorme draaikolk die eens in de 200 miljoen jaar een volledige omwenteling maakt. Hij bestaat uit ten minste 100 miljard sterren, evenals stof en gas. Hij is zo groot dat het licht er<br \/>100 000 jaar om van de ene kant naar de andere te komen.<\/p>\n<p>Het midden van de Melkweg is heel moeilijk te zien omdat er gas- en stofwolken voor hangen. Wetenschappers denken dat er een supermassief zwart gat in zit dat alles opslokt wat maar te dicht in de buurt komt.<\/p>\n<p>Buiten de hoofdspiraal bevinden zich ongeveer 200 bolvormige sterrenhopen. Elke \u2018bolvormige sterrenhoop\u2019 is zeer oud en bevat tot wel een miljoen sterren. De Melkweg maakt deel uit van een cluster van ten minste 40 sterrenstelsels. De zogenaamde Lokale Groep bestaat uit twee grote spiraalstelsels: de Melkweg en Andromeda.<\/p>\n<p>De andere zijn veel kleiner. Daarvan zijn er twee met het blote oog te zien vanuit landen onder de evenaar. Deze terrenstelsels worden Magelhaense Wolken genoemd, naar de Portugese ontdekkingsreiziger Ferdinand Magelhaes.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We live in one of the arms of a large spiral galaxy called the Milky Way. The Sun and its planets (including Earth) lie in this quiet part of the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"esa_banner_image":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/var\/esa\/storage\/images\/esa_multimedia\/images\/2003\/05\/gro_ji655-40_a_black_hole_hurtles_across_the_plane_of_the_milky_way2\/17911787-2-eng-GB\/GRO_JI655-40_a_black_hole_hurtles_across_the_plane_of_the_Milky_Way.jpg","esa_banner_description":"GRO JI655-40, a black hole hurtles across the plane of the Milky Way","esa_banner_credit":"European Space Agency, NASA and Felix Mirabel (the French Atomic Energy Commission & the Institute for Astronomy and Space Physics\/Conicet of Argentina)","esa_banner_licence":"ESA Standard Licence","esa_banner_detail_url":"https:\/\/www.esa.int\/ESA_Multimedia\/Images\/2003\/05\/GRO_JI655-40_a_black_hole_hurtles_across_the_plane_of_the_Milky_Way2","esa_external_url":"","esa_external_new_window":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":true},"categories":[10,11,21],"tags":[2],"panel":[],"language":[],"age":[],"duration":[],"resource_type":[],"audience":[],"wf_post_folders":[],"class_list":["post-961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learn","category-our-universe","category-stars-and-galaxies","tag-background-article"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=961"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2104,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/961\/revisions\/2104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"panel","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/panel?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/language?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"age","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/age?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"duration","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/duration?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"resource_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_type?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/audience?post=961"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kids.esa.int\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}