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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 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.
A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter bound together by gravity. [1] [2] The word is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System.
The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy. [1] [2] Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, [3] [4] [5] a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center.
The Solar System remains in a relatively stable, slowly evolving state by following isolated, gravitationally bound orbits around the Sun. [28] Although the Solar System has been fairly stable for billions of years, it is technically chaotic, and may eventually be disrupted. There is a small chance that another star will pass through the Solar ...
The solar wind is traveling at supersonic speeds within the Solar System. At the termination shock, a standing shock wave , the solar wind falls below the speed of sound and becomes subsonic . It was previously thought that once subsonic, the solar wind would be shaped by the ambient flow of the interstellar medium, forming a blunt nose on one ...
The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias (γαλαξίας), literally "milky", a reference to the Milky Way. Galaxies range in size from dwarfs with just a few billion (109) stars to giants with one hundred trillion (1014) stars, each orbiting its galaxy's center of mass.
The Solar System is located within a structure called the Local Bubble, a low-density region of the galactic interstellar medium. [5] Within this region is the Local Interstellar Cloud (LIC), an area of slightly higher hydrogen density. It is estimated that the Solar System entered the LIC within the past 10,000 years. [6]