Milky Way Galaxy

The Milky Way Galaxy is a galaxy that contains over four hundred billion stars. This galaxy generates its own magnetic field, which experiences dips and peaks. The galaxy is 100,000 light years wide. (TNG: "Pen Pals"; VOY: "Inside Man"; ENT: "Azati Prime")

The Milky Way's disc is surrounded by a massive energy field of negative energy called the galactic barrier, which makes travel into and out of the galaxy difficult. (TOS: "Where No Man Has Gone Before", "By Any Other Name") By 2369, the extragalactic space was being charted by starships. (TNG: "Aquiel")

The galaxy was theorized to have been created from a great explosion, and it was further theorized that its center might still be creating new matter. This theory was proved correct with the finding of the creation point in 2269. The core was surrounded by the Great Barrier, containing a planet thought to be Sha Ka Ree by Sybok. (TAS: "The Magicks of Megas-Tu"; Star Trek V: The Final Frontier)

In "The Magicks of Megas-Tu", the Enterprise seemed to reach the center without incident, while in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier the great barrier was believed to be impenetrable.
In the real world the center of the galaxy is thought to be a supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*.

In the science of stellar cartography, the Milky Way was divided into four major areas called quadrants: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, and Delta (the first four letters of the Greek alphabet), each of which composed one-quarter of the galaxy. Each quadrant was divided into thousands of sectors. The Galactic Core was the intersection of all four quadrants. (TNG: "The Price"; Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; VOY: "Pathfinder")

In the 12th century, the Sphere-Builders built a network of spheres in the Milky Way, which created trans-dimensional disturbances as a prelude to invading the Milky Way. (ENT: "Chosen Realm", "Azati Prime")

By 2267, there were Humans on a thousand planets in the galaxy. (TOS: "Metamorphosis") Between 2064 and 2364, Humans had charted 11% of the galaxy. (TNG: "Where No One Has Gone Before") Within a year, the Federation had charted an additional 8% of the galaxy. (TNG: "The Dauphin")

By 2268, research expeditions of the Federation had catalogued hundreds of uninhabited planets suitable for colonization. (TOS: "By Any Other Name")

In a deleted scene from Star Trek, a holographic message from James T. Kirk (presumably recorded in 2293) claimed that "by the last tally, only twenty five percent of the galaxy's been chartered"[1]. This would, however, be inconsistent with the numbers given in "Where No One Has Gone Before" and "The Dauphin".

A map of the Milky Way Galaxy was on display in the security station aboard the USS Enterprise-D in 2365. This map depicted the lines of longitude. (TNG: "The Emissary")

A map of the Milky Way Galaxy was on display in astrometrics aboard the USS Voyager from 2377 through 2378. (VOY: "Inside Man", et al.)

In the mid-22nd century, scientists estimated that one out of every 43,000 planets in the galaxy supported intelligent lifeforms. (ENT: "Fight or Flight") Thus, in the galaxy there were millions of planets that could support intelligent life. (TOS: "Metamorphosis")

According to Dr. Leonard McCoy, there was a mathematical probability of three million Earth-type planets in the galaxy. (TOS: "Balance of Terror")

An expedition sent by the Kelvan Empire, from the radiation-imperiled Andromeda Galaxy, scouted the Milky Way for possible invasion in 2268. (TOS: "By Any Other Name")

In a potential alternate timeline, by the 26th century the Sphere-Builders had transformed 50,000 light-years of space in the Milky Way, wiping out thousands of planets, before finally being defeated and expelled from the galaxy by the Federation at the Battle of Procyon V. (ENT: "Azati Prime")

The name of the galaxy was first mentioned in "The Counter-Clock Incident". The name was mentioned again in "Course: Oblivion" and "Tinker Tenor Doctor Spy".
In 2293, the Milky Way Galaxy was depicted on the Federation star chart "The Explored Galaxy". This chart was first seen on aboard the starship USS Enterprise-A. In the 2360s, the chart was seen again at Starfleet Headquarters] on Earth, aboard the USS Enterprise-D, in a courtroom in the Starfleet outpost Starbase 173, and in a classroom on the space station Deep Space 9. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country; TNG: "Conspiracy", "The Measure Of A Man", "Emissary"; DS9: "In the Hands of the Prophets")

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External links

Milky Way Galaxy at Wikipedia
Milky Way Galaxy at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works

Milky Way Galaxy

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