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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.
(110–210 Earth radii) 6.36×10 6 –1.27×10 7: The space dominated by Earth's magnetic field and its magnetotail, shaped by the solar wind. [17] Earth's orbit: 299.2 million km [b] 2 AU [c] 2.99×10 8: The average diameter of the orbit of the Earth relative to the Sun. Encompasses the Sun, Mercury and Venus. [18] Inner Solar System ~6.54 AU ...
The spiral arms are sites of ongoing star formation and are brighter than the surrounding disc because of the young, hot OB stars that inhabit them. Roughly two-thirds of all spirals are observed to have an additional component in the form of a bar-like structure, [2] extending from the central bulge, at the ends of which the spiral arms begin.
Artist's conception of the Milky Way galaxy as seen from far Galactic North (in Coma Berenices) by NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt annotated with arms (colour-coded according to Milky Way article) as well as distances from the Solar System and galactic longitude with corresponding constellation. Date: 20 March 2011, 00:38 (UTC) Source
For a spiral galaxy, this can be obtained from the inclination of the galactic plane to the plane of the sky, and the position angle of the major axis as viewed from Earth. The result yields a direction perpendicular to the galactic plane. [1] In the case of the Milky Way, this is given by the coordinates of the galactic pole.
Ignoring the influence of other Solar System bodies, Earth's orbit, also called Earth's revolution, is an ellipse with the Earth–Sun barycenter as one focus with a current eccentricity of 0.0167. Since this value is close to zero, the center of the orbit is relatively close to the center of the Sun (relative to the size of the orbit).
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Due to forces that the Sun and Moon exert, Earth's equatorial plane moves with respect to the celestial sphere. Earth rotates while the ECI coordinate system does not. Earth-centered inertial (ECI) coordinate frames have their origins at the center of mass of Earth and are fixed with respect to the stars. [1] "