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An interstellar cloud is generally an accumulation of gas, plasma, and dust in our and other galaxies. But differently, an interstellar cloud is a denser-than-average region of the interstellar medium , the matter and radiation that exists in the space between the star systems in a galaxy.
Thus, the Sun occupies 0.00001% (1 part in 10 7) of the volume of a sphere with a radius the size of Earth's orbit, whereas Earth's volume is roughly 1 millionth (10 −6) that of the Sun. Jupiter, the largest planet, is 5.2 AU from the Sun and has a radius of 71,000 km (0.00047 AU; 44,000 mi), whereas the most distant planet, Neptune, is 30 AU ...
The Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), also known as the Local Fluff, is an interstellar cloud roughly 30 light-years (9.2 pc) across, through which the Solar System is moving. This feature overlaps with a region around the Sun referred to as the solar neighborhood. [2] It is unknown whether the Sun is embedded in the Local Interstellar Cloud, or ...
The closest and largest dark nebulae are visible to the naked eye, since they are the least obscured by stars in between Earth and the nebula, and because they have the largest angular size, appearing as dark patches against the brighter background of the Milky Way like the Coalsack Nebula and the Great Rift.
Examples of the former case are giant molecular clouds, the coldest, densest phase of interstellar gas, which can form by the cooling and condensation of more diffuse gas. Examples of the latter case are planetary nebulae formed from material shed by a star in late stages of its stellar evolution .
Local Interstellar Cloud – immediate galactic neighborhood of the Solar System. Alpha Centauri – star system nearest to the Solar System, at about 4.4 light years away; Solar System – star and planetary system where the Earth is located. Earth – the only planet known to have life.
Christopher Nolan's sci-fi film, starring Matthew McConaughey, Jessica Chastain and Anne Hathaway, hit theaters 10 years ago
Measurements with the Hubble Space Telescope in 2006 suggest the Magellanic Clouds may be moving too fast to be orbiting the Milky Way. [3] Of the galaxies confirmed to be in orbit, the largest is the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy , which has a diameter of 2.6 kiloparsecs (8,500 ly) [ 4 ] or roughly a twentieth that of the Milky Way.