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The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with a diameter of 26.8 ± 1.1 kiloparsecs (87,400 ± 3,600 light-years ). It is a barred spiral galaxy with a supermassive black hole at its center and many satellite galaxies.
Laniakea Supercluster is the galaxy supercluster that contains the Milky Way and about 100,000 other nearby galaxies. It was defined in 2014 by a new method based on galaxy velocities and has four subparts: Virgo, Hydra–Centaurus, Great Attractor, and Antlia Wall.
The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy. It contains a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, called Sagittarius A*, which is a compact radio source near the galactic rotational center.
Orion Arm is a minor spiral arm in the Milky Way Galaxy that contains the Solar System and many bright stars and nebulae. Learn about its location, composition, form, and Messier objects in this comprehensive article.
The Local Group is the galaxy group that includes the Milky Way, where Earth is located. It has a diameter of 10 million light-years and a mass of 2 × 10 12 solar masses, and consists of two collections of galaxies in a "dumbbell" shape.
UY Scuti is a red supergiant star with a radius of 909 solar radii, located 5,900 light-years away in the constellation Scutum. It is also a pulsating variable star, with a maximum brightness of magnitude 8.29 and a minimum of magnitude 10.56.
The Virgo Supercluster is a supercluster of galaxies containing the Local Group and the Virgo Cluster, with a diameter of 110 million light-years. It is part of the Laniakea Supercluster, which is moving toward the Shapley Supercluster, and has a mass-to-light ratio of 300 times the solar ratio.
The habitable zone of Gliese 581 compared with the Solar System's habitable zone. The 2007 discovery of Gliese 581c, the first super-Earth in the circumstellar habitable zone, created significant interest in the system by the scientific community, although the planet was later found to have extreme surface conditions that may resemble Venus. [137]