Our earth is 25,000 light years away from the centre of the milky way.
The Milky Way is 13.21 billion years old; 100,000 light years in diameter, home to about 200 - 400 billion stars with at least 100 billion planets.
The Milky Way has gobbled hundreds of galaxies to get it's shape and mass.
Every picture of the Milky Way from above, is either an artists interpretation or another galaxy. This is due to the fact that, at the moment, we are too far away and cannot capture images of the Milky Way from above.
This picture below, is from the Hubble telescope peering into the heart of the milky way.