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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's spiral structure is uncertain, and there is currently no consensus on the nature of the Milky Way's arms. [212] Perfect logarithmic spiral patterns only crudely describe features near the Sun, [ 210 ] [ 213 ] because galaxies commonly have arms that branch, merge, twist unexpectedly, and feature a degree of irregularity.
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.
Orion Arm: 3000 pc (length) 9.26×10 16: The spiral arm of the Milky Way Galaxy through which the Sun is currently travelling. Orbit of the Solar System: 17,200 pc 5.31×10 17: The average diameter of the orbit of the Solar System relative to the Galactic Center. The Sun's orbital radius is roughly 8,600 parsecs, or slightly over halfway to the ...
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]
Crux is backlit by the multitude of stars of the Scutum-Crux Arm (more commonly called the Scutum-Centaurus Arm) of the Milky Way. This is the main inner arm in the local radial quarter of the galaxy. Part-obscuring this is: The Coalsack Nebula lies partially within Crux and partly in the neighboring constellations of Musca and Centaurus. [3]
Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to spot a Milky Way-like galaxy that formed soon after the big bang ... Given the distance between Earth and the objects from the early days of the ...
Picture Galaxy Type Distance from Earth Magnitude Group Membership Notes Diameter (ly) Millions of light-years Mpc M m - Milky Way: SBbc 0.0265 (to the galactic center) [2] 0.008 [2] ...