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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 Solar System's location in the Milky Way is a factor in the evolutionary history of life on Earth. Spiral arms are home to a far larger concentration of supernovae , gravitational instabilities, and radiation that could disrupt the Solar System, but since Earth stays in the Local Spur and therefore does not pass frequently through spiral ...
In astronomy, galactocentrism is the theory that the Milky Way Galaxy, home of Earth ' s Solar System, is at or near the center of the Universe. [1] [2]Thomas Wright and Immanuel Kant first speculated that fuzzy patches of light called nebulae were actually distant "island universes" consisting of many stellar systems. [3]
The Solar System is one of many planetary systems in the galaxy. [1] [2] The planetary system that contains Earth is named the "Solar" System. The word "solar" is derived from the Latin word for Sun, Sol (genitive Solis). Anything related to the Sun is called "solar": for example, stellar wind from the Sun is called solar wind.
The Solar System travels alone through the Milky Way in a circular orbit approximately 30,000 light years from the Galactic Center. Its speed is about 220 km/s. Its speed is about 220 km/s. The period required for the Solar System to complete one revolution around the Galactic Center, the galactic year , is in the range of 220–250 million years.
The Milky Way galaxy is a member of an association named the Local Group, a relatively small group of galaxies that has a diameter of approximately one megaparsec. The Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are the two brightest galaxies within the group; many of the other member galaxies are dwarf companions of these two. [176]
The Milky Way galaxy, where the Solar System is located, is in many ways the best-studied galaxy, although important parts of it are obscured from view in visible wavelengths by regions of cosmic dust.
Galactic Tick Day is an awareness and education day that celebrates the movement of the Solar System around the Milky Way galaxy. [1] [2] [3] [4]The day occurs at a regular interval of 1.7361 years (or 633.7 days), [5] which is called a galactic tick.