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The Milky Way [c] is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
The Orion Arm is one of the spiral arms of our Milky Way galaxy. Astrometrics [ edit ] The easiest way to determine stellar distance to the Sun for objects at these distances is parallax , which measures how much stars appear to move against background objects over the course of Earth's orbit around the Sun.
List of nearest galaxies. This is a list of known galaxies within 3.8 megaparsecs (12.4 million light-years) of the Solar System, in ascending order of heliocentric distance, or the distance to the Sun. This encompasses about 50 major Local Group galaxies, and some that are members of neighboring galaxy groups, the M81 Group and the Centaurus A ...
Astronomers using the Gaia space telescope have located two ancient streams of stars that helped the Milky Way galaxy grow and evolve more than 12 billion years ago.
Orion Arm. The Orion Arm, also known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm, is a minor spiral arm within the Milky Way Galaxy spanning 3,500 light-years (1,100 parsecs) in width and extending roughly 10,000 light-years (3,100 parsecs) in length. [2] This galactic structure encompasses the Solar System, including Earth.
See also: Galaxy group, Galaxy cluster, List of galaxy groups and clusters 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.
The Solar System is located in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years containing more than 100 billion stars. The Sun is part of one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur. It is a member of the thin disk population of stars orbiting close to the galactic ...
Galactic quadrant. Longitudinal lines of the galactic coordinate system. A galactic quadrant, or quadrant of the Galaxy, is one of four circular sectors in the division of the Milky Way Galaxy. Numbered quadrants and sectors of constellations. Quadrants as starcharts, with most prominent stars marked.