The Milky Way is the second largest galaxy in the Local Group. with its stellar disk approximately 100,000 ly (30 kpc) in diameter & on average approximately 1,000 ly thick.
Clouds of dust normally block the view from Earth to the galaxy’s centre, but by using an infra red camera the photographer was able to reveal parts of the spectrum that are usually invisible
image credit to http://edition.cnn.com/2017/01/31/world/milky-way-dipole-repeller-space-trnd/index.html