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The galactic year, also known as a cosmic year, is the duration of time required for the Sun to orbit once around the center of the Milky Way Galaxy. [1] One galactic year is approximately 225 million Earth years. [2]
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 ...
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 objects on orange orbits (Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn) revolve around the Sun. Around all is a sphere of fixed stars, located just beyond Saturn. Prior to the publication of De Revolutionibus , the most widely accepted system had been proposed by Ptolemy , in which the Earth was the center of the universe and all celestial ...
The solar wind plasma which is moving roughly "upstream" (in the same direction as the Sun's motion through the galaxy) is compressed into a nearly-spherical form, whereas the plasma moving "downstream" (opposite the Sun's motion) flows out for a much greater distance before giving way to the ISM, defining the long, trailing shape of the heliotail.
The inclination of the moon's orbit is shown relative to the Ecliptic Plane. The Solar System traces out a sinusoidal path in its orbit around the galactic center. Using Galactic North as the initial frame of reference, the Earth and Sun rotate counterclockwise, and the Earth revolves in a counterclockwise direction around the Sun.
The Sun is moved by the gravitational pull of the planets. The center of the Sun moves around the Solar System barycenter, within a range from 0.1 to 2.2 solar radii. The Sun's motion around the barycenter approximately repeats every 179 years, rotated by about 30° due primarily to the synodic period of Jupiter and Saturn. [152]
The galaxy's diffuse gamma-ray fog hampered prior observations, but the discovery team led by D. Finkbeiner, building on research by G. Dobler, worked around this problem. [37] The 2014 Bruno Rossi Prize went to Tracy Slatyer , Douglas Finkbeiner , and Meng Su "for their discovery, in gamma rays, of the large unanticipated Galactic structure ...