Our Sun belongs to a very large group of stars that we call the Milky Way Galaxy. The Milky Way Galaxy is pretty flat, like a huge disk. If you have ever stargazed from a very dark place, you may have noticed a bright band of light stretching across the sky. This band of light is made up of numerous stars that lie in the disk of the Milky Way. Most of these stars are far too faint for human eyes to see individually. From the darkest locations on Earth, you may be able to see a few thousand stars, from a small town, perhaps a few hundred, and from a big city, probably no more than a few dozen. In reality, there are a few hundred billion stars in our Galaxy (one hundred billion), but you would not be able to see the light from more than a small fraction of these stars even if you used the most powerful telescope! This is because the interstellar medium, or the space between the stars, contains enormous clouds of gas and dust, called nebulae.

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