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The Sun, and thus the Solar System, is located in the Milky Way's galactic habitable zone. [98] [99] There are about 208 stars brighter than absolute magnitude 8.5 within a sphere with a radius of 15 parsecs (49 ly) from the Sun, giving a density of one star per 69 cubic parsecs, or one star per 2,360 cubic light-years (from List of nearest ...
Orbit of the Solar System: 17,200 pc 5.31×10 17: 17.72: The average diameter of the orbit of the Solar System relative to the Galactic Center. The Sun's orbital radius is roughly 8,600 parsecs, or slightly over halfway to the galactic edge. One orbital period of the Solar System lasts between 225 and 250 million years. Milky Way Galaxy: 30,000 pc
The Solar System's location in the Milky Way is a factor in the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Spiral arms are home to a far larger concentration of supernovae , gravitational instabilities, and radiation that could disrupt the Solar System, but since Earth stays in the Local Spur and therefore does not pass frequently through spiral ...
List of the largest known stars in the Milky Way Star name Solar radii (Sun = 1) Method Notes Orbit of Saturn: 2,047 – 2,049.9: Reported for reference: WOH G64 (For comparison) 1,540 ± 77: L/T eff: Located in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Possibly the largest known star. Theoretical limit of star size (Milky Way)
Based on results from the Gaia telescope's second data release from April 2018, an estimated 694 stars will approach the Solar System to less than 5 parsecs in the next 15 million years. Of these, 26 have a good probability to come within 1.0 parsec (3.3 light-years) and another 7 within 0.5 parsecs (1.6 light-years). [3]
Olympus Mons, the tallest planetary mountain in the Solar System, compared to Mount Everest and Mauna Kea on Earth (heights shown are above datum or sea level, which differ from the base-to-peak heights given in the list). This is a list of the tallest mountains in the Solar System.
Orion Arm – a spiral arm of the Milky Way. Solar System – the Sun and the objects that orbit it, including eight planets, the third planet closest to the Sun being Earth. Earth's orbit – path through which the Earth travels around the Sun. The average distance between the Earth and the Sun is 149.60 million kilometers (92.96 million miles).
The Solar System is located within a structure called the Local Bubble, a low-density region of the galactic interstellar medium. Within this region is the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), an area of slightly higher hydrogen density. It is estimated that the Solar System entered the LIC within the past 10,000 years.