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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 20,000 light-years (6,100 parsecs) in length. [2] This galactic structure encompasses the Solar System, including Earth.
The Milky Way is a barred spiral galaxy with two major arms and a number of minor arms or spurs. [1] The Perseus Spiral Arm, with a radius of approximately 10.7 kiloparsecs, is located between the minor Cygnus and Carina–Sagittarius Arms. [1] It is named after the Perseus constellation in the direction of which it is seen from Earth.
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.
Observed structure of the Milky Way's spiral arms. The Carina–Sagittarius Arm (also known as the Sagittarius Arm or Sagittarius–Carina Arm, labeled -I [clarification needed]) is generally thought to be a minor spiral arm of the Milky Way galaxy. [1] Each spiral arm is a long, diffuse curving streamer of stars that radiates from the Galactic ...
The Scutum–Centaurus Arm, also known as Scutum-Crux arm, is a long, diffuse curving streamer of stars, gas and dust that spirals outward from the proximate end of the Milky Way's central bar. The Milky Way has been posited since the 1950s to have four spiral arms ; numerous studies contest or nuance this number. [ 1 ]
Astronomers have spied an intriguing phenomenon in the distant universe — a galaxy that closely resembles the Milky Way — and it’s challenging key theories on how galaxies evolve.
A model of the Milky Way. The yellow dot indicates the position of the Sun, the red dots the position of the embedded clusters , which serve as indicators of the spiral structure It is challenging to ascertain the presence of spiral arms in the disc of our galaxy through optical observation, given that the Sun is situated within the plane of ...
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.