Gold Ounce 2021 Earth and Beyond - The Milky Way, Coin from Australia - detailed information

The Australian one-ounce gold piece (abbreviated as 1 oz and designated with Au for "gold") is a bullion coin format. Uniquely, in Australia there are two mints authorised to strike legal tender: the Royal Australian Mint (which also makes the country's circulating coinage) and the Perth Mint which only makes collector and bullion coins, as well as other bullion products.

Both mints endeavour to create coins with attractive designs, and to introduce new designs and themes often, in order to raise the numismatic value of the coins over the value of previous metal used.

This coin is the fourth and final issue in the Royal Australian Mint's Earth and Beyond coin series dedicated to the planets in our solar system and the space beyond, and features the Milky Way.

This is the first dome-shaped coloured gold coin in the world.

The Milky Way is one of trillions of galaxies and is the galaxy that is home to our solar system with planet Earth. The spiral galaxy, which appears to the observer like a milky band in the night sky, consists of an estimated 100 to 400 billion stars and is about 13.6 billion years old. Our home galaxy has a diameter of up to 200,000 light years. Our solar system is positioned quite far out, about 26,000 light-years from the centre of the Milky Way, where dust, gas and stars are centred in the galaxy's hot, bright core. The centre, known as the bulge, is not visible by us optically due to dark clouds and interstellar matter - but it is still worth taking a look at the night sky, because with its open star clusters and dense nebulae, the Milky Way always offers the observer a breathtaking sight.