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The Milky Way is approximately 890 billion to 1.54 trillion times the mass of the Sun in total (8.9 × 10 11 to 1.54 × 10 12 solar masses), [7][8][9] although stars and planets make up only a small part of this. Estimates of the mass of the Milky Way vary, depending upon the method and data used.
September 26, 2024 at 8:01 AM. (The Independent) Astronomers have made the most detailed infrared map of our galaxy ever made. The huge map has already helped changed our view of the galaxy in ...
The ecliptic or ecliptic plane is the orbital plane of Earth around the Sun. [1][2][a] From the perspective of an observer on Earth, the Sun's movement around the celestial sphere over the course of a year traces out a path along the ecliptic against the background of stars. [3] The ecliptic is an important reference plane and is the basis of ...
The Sun is part of one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur. [272] [273] It is a member of the thin disk population of stars orbiting close to the galactic plane. [274] Its speed around the center of the Milky Way is about 220 km/s, so that it completes one revolution every 240 million years. [271]
The European Space Agency launched the Gaia satellite and its one-billion-pixel camera to space back in 2013. Gaia has been mapping the Milky Way ever since, and now the ESA has released a 3D map ...
You might think of our Solar System as a pretty special place — and considering it's produced the only known example of life, that's probably a fair point of view — but the Milky Way, our home ...
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. [7] At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (163,000 light-years), [2] [8] [9] [10] the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal (c. 16 kiloparsecs (52,000 light-years) away) and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy called the Canis Major Overdensity.
Either go four-and-a-half times the distance of the long axis in the direction the narrow end of the cross points, or join the two pointer stars with a line, divide this line in half, then at right angles draw another imaginary line through the sky until it meets the line from the Southern Cross. This point is 5 or 6 degrees from the south ...