A bright band that encircles the entire night sky. The Milky Way in the Sky From Earth , without telescopic aid, the band of the Milky Way appears as a bright and hazy region of light encircling the sky.
Many ancient cultures seem to have imagined it as a stream of various kinds.
The Egyptians saw it as a river, perhaps the celestial embodiment of the River Nile. The Greeks imagined it as a stream of milk, and from that conception comes our modern term, 'Milky Way'. The Greek word for milk is galaktos , incidentally, and this is the ultimate source for our word ' galaxy '. The brightness of the Milky Way is not constant. In some regions, it is obscured altogether by dark clouds of dust.