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In astronomy, the local standard of rest or LSR is a reference frame which follows the mean motion of material in the Milky Way in the neighborhood of the Sun (stars in radius 100 pc from the Sun), [1] on average sharing the same velocity around the Milky Way as the Sun. [2] The path of this material is not precisely circular. [3]
The Sun is part of one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur. [272] [273] It is a member of the thin disk population of stars orbiting close to the galactic plane. [274] Its speed around the center of the Milky Way is about 220 km/s, so that it completes one revolution every 240 million years. [271]
The Sun, taking along the whole Solar System, orbits the galaxy's center of mass at an average speed of 230 km/s (828,000 km/h) or 143 mi/s (514,000 mph), [167] taking about 220–250 million Earth years to complete a revolution (a Galactic year), [168] having done so about 20 times since the Sun's formation.
Local Group of 47 galaxies [13] coalesces into a single large galaxy [14] Visualization of the orbit of the Sun (yellow dot and white curve) around the Galactic Center (GC) in the last galactic year. The red dots correspond to the positions of the stars studied by the European Southern Observatory in a monitoring program.
In galactic astronomy, peculiar motion refers to the motion of an object (usually a star) relative to a Galactic rest frame. Local objects are commonly examined as to their vectors of position angle and radial velocity. These can be combined through vector addition to state the object's motion relative to the Sun.
In gravitationally bound systems, the orbital speed of an astronomical body or object (e.g. planet, moon, artificial satellite, spacecraft, or star) is the speed at which it orbits around either the barycenter (the combined center of mass) or, if one body is much more massive than the other bodies of the system combined, its speed relative to the center of mass of the most massive body.
The approximate speed of the Voyager 1 probe relative to the Sun, when it exited the Solar System. [25] 29,800: 107,280: 66,700 0.00010: Speed of the Earth in orbit around the Sun. 47,800: 172,100: 106,900 0.00016: Atmospheric entry speed of the Galileo atmospheric probe—Fastest controlled atmospheric entry for a human-made object. 66,000: ...
The apex of the Sun's way, or the solar apex, is the direction that the Sun travels through space in the Milky Way. The general direction of the Sun's Galactic motion is towards the star Vega near the constellation of Hercules, at an angle of roughly 60 sky degrees to the direction of the Galactic Center. The Sun's orbit about the Milky Way is ...