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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 [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 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.
center – the study of the central region of the Milky Way; disk – the study of the Milky Way disk (the plane upon which most galactic objects are aligned) evolution – the evolution of the Milky Way; formation – the formation of the Milky Way; fundamental parameters – the fundamental parameters of the Milky Way (mass, size etc.)
The outer end of it is identified either with the Cygnus Arm (not to be confused with local and minor Orion-Cygnus Arm), which lies outside the Perseus Arm, or the Outer Arm, which is located farther away from the center of the Galaxy than the Cygnus Arm. [1] The Norma Arm begins 2.2 kpc from the Galactic Center, [2] and extends outward to a ...
While Earth is located about 26,000 light-years from what's known as the galactic center, the outer portions of the Milky Way are even further, at about 58,000 light-years from our galaxy's ...
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.
The Sun is part of one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur. [270] [271] It is a member of the thin disk population of stars orbiting close to the galactic plane. [272] Its speed around the center of the Milky Way is about 220 km/s, so that it completes one revolution every 240 million years. [269]