Many people are not clear about the difference between our solar system our milky way galaxy and the universe.
Planet earth solar system milky way galaxy.
Earth the solar system oort cloud local fluff local bubble orion arm milky way galaxy local group virgo supercluster laniakea supercluster universe.
14 15 the nearest exoplanets are located 4 2 light years 1 3 parsecs from earth and orbit proxima centauri the closest star to the sun.
The milky way galaxy is a very very big place.
In galaxies the solar systems are separated by vast sections of mostly empty space.
But where is our solar system.
Let s look at the basics.
One orbital period of the solar system lasts between 225 and 250 million years.
The galaxy that contains the earth and its solar system is called the milky way.
The product of some 4 6 billion years of cosmic construction our planet is.
Our galaxy the milky way also has a supermassive black hole in the middle.
Galaxies like solar systems are held together by gravity.
Orbit of the solar system.
This means there are potentially thousands of planetary systems like our solar system within the galaxy.
The average diameter of the orbit of the solar system relative to the galactic center.
Our solar system consists of our star the sun and its orbiting planets including earth along with numerous moons asteroids comet material rocks and dust our sun is just one star among the hundreds of billions of stars in our milky way galaxy.
The first two are easy to grasp but.
A galaxy is a huge collection of gas dust and billions of stars and their solar systems.
It was only after many centuries.
The minor arms are primarily filled with gas and pockets of star forming activity.
We live on a planet called earth that is part of our solar system.
A galaxy is held together by gravity.
Earth is well equipped as a planet and ideally placed in our solar system and galaxy to support life as we know it.
The milky way galaxy the major arms consist of the highest densities of both young and old stars.
There is evidence that extragalactic planets exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local milky way galaxy may exist.
Fact that earth based observations were complicated by the fact that the earth is embedded in the solar system.
The artist s concept also includes a new spiral arm called the far 3 kiloparsec arm discovered via a radio telescope survey of gas in the milky way.
A galaxy is a system of solar systems and other stars.
The sun s orbital radius is roughly 8 600 parsecs or slightly over half way to the galactic edge.
This galaxy is thought to contain more than 200 billion different.