The Milky Way galaxy began forming approximately 13.6 billion years ago, roughly 200 million years after the Big Bang. It is one of the oldest galaxies in the observable universe. Our galaxy is a barred spiral containing 200–400 billion stars, with our Solar System located about 26,000 light-years from the galactic center.
The Milky Way rotates: our Solar System takes about 225–250 million years to complete one orbit around the galactic center — a period called a Galactic Year. In the entire history of Earth (4.6 billion years), our Solar System has completed roughly 18–20 galactic orbits.
The Cosmic Dashboard's Galaxy level displays the Milky Way's age growing in real time alongside the universe's age, and shows the galaxy's age as a percentage of the universe — currently about 98.5%. A spiral galaxy SVG rotates slowly, giving a visual sense of the galaxy's ongoing motion.