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The Sun follows the solar circle (eccentricity e < 0.1) at a speed of about 255 km/s in a clockwise direction when viewed from the galactic north pole at a radius of ≈ 8.34 kpc [4] about the center of the galaxy near Sgr A*, and has only a slight motion, towards the solar apex, relative to the LSR. [5] [6]
The Solar System is traveling at an average speed of 230 km/s (828,000 km/h) or 143 mi/s (514,000 mph) within its trajectory around the Galactic Center, [3] a speed at which an object could circumnavigate the Earth's equator in 2 minutes and 54 seconds; that speed corresponds to approximately 1/1300 of the speed of light.
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), [168] taking about 220–250 million Earth years to complete a revolution (a Galactic year), [169] having done so about 20 times since the Sun's formation.
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]
Speed is the magnitude of velocity (a vector), which indicates additionally the direction of motion. Speed has the dimensions of distance divided by time. The SI unit of speed is the metre per second (m/s), but the most common unit of speed in everyday usage is the kilometre per hour (km/h) or, in the US and the UK, miles per hour (mph).
Figure 1: Geometry of the Oort constants derivation, with a field star close to the Sun in the midplane of the Galaxy. Consider a star in the midplane of the Galactic disk with Galactic longitude at a distance from the Sun. Assume that both the star and the Sun have circular orbits around the center of the Galaxy at radii of and from the Galactic Center and rotational velocities of and ...
The Andromeda Galaxy is a barred spiral galaxy and is the nearest major galaxy to the Milky Way. It was originally named the Andromeda Nebula and is cataloged as Messier 31 , M31 , and NGC 224 . Andromeda has a D 25 isophotal diameter of about 46.56 kiloparsecs (152,000 light-years ) [ 8 ] and is approximately 765 kpc (2.5 million light-years ...
Illustration of the observable universe, centered on the Sun. The distance scale is logarithmic. Due to the finite speed of light, we see more distant parts of the universe at earlier times. Due to the finite speed of light, there is a limit (known as the particle horizon) to how far light can travel over the age of the universe.