Tuesday, June 20, 2023

Not the Candy Bar

 When most people in the US hear Milky Way they tend to think of the candy bar before the galaxy maybe because of some kind of Pavlovian response? but today it's about the galaxy. The Milky Way is vast, if a person traveled at the speed of light it would still take 200,000 years to cross. The name comes from a Greek myth where Hera was feeding Hercules and pulled her breast away spraying milk across the cosmos. The root of the word galaxy (gala) means milk in Greek, a similar name and myth exists in Latin for the Roman version. So how did the candy bar get the same name? Not after the galaxy, it was named after a popular malted milk drink of that time (1924). 






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