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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.
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 ...
The Laniakea Supercluster (/ ˌ l ɑː n i. ə ˈ k eɪ. ə /; Hawaiian for "open skies" or "immense heaven") [2] or the Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is the galaxy supercluster that is home to the Milky Way and approximately 100,000 other nearby galaxies.
Supercluster. A map of the superclusters and voids nearest to Earth. A supercluster is a large group of smaller galaxy clusters or galaxy groups; [1] they are among the largest known structures in the universe. The Milky Way is part of the Local Group galaxy group (which contains more than 54 galaxies), which in turn is part of the Virgo ...
Bottom: Logarithmic scale of the Solar System and Voyager 1 's position. The heliosphere is the magnetosphere, astrosphere, and outermost atmospheric layer of the Sun. It takes the shape of a vast, tailed bubble-like region of space. In plasma physics terms, it is the cavity formed by the Sun in the surrounding interstellar medium.
Location of the Solar System within the Milky Way. The Solar System travels alone through the Milky Way in a circular orbit approximately 30,000 light years from the Galactic Center. Its speed is about 220 km/s. The period required for the Solar System to complete one revolution around the Galactic Center, the galactic year, is in the range of ...
Virgo Supercluster (old), LSC, LS. The Local Supercluster (LSC or LS) is a formerly defined supercluster containing the Virgo Cluster and Local Group, which itself contains the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies, as well as others. At least 100 galaxy groups and clusters are located within its diameter of 33 megaparsecs (110 million light-years).
The Milky Way galaxy, where the Solar System is located, is in many ways the best-studied galaxy, although important parts of it are obscured from view in visible wavelengths by regions of cosmic dust.