Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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 in other arms of the galaxy, which are so far away that they cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye.
Diagram of the Milky Way, with galactic features and the relative position of the Solar System labeled. The Solar System is located in the Milky Way , a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years containing more than 100 billion stars. [ 271 ]
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.
Outside the heliosphere, this solar plasma gives way to the interstellar plasma permeating the Milky Way. As part of the interplanetary magnetic field, the heliosphere shields the Solar System from significant amounts of cosmic ionizing radiation; uncharged gamma rays are, however, not affected. [1]
Navigation in the Milky Way is also identified with cardinal directions, indicating distance from the Sol System: for example, Ultima Segmentum, the largest segmentum in the Imperium of Man, is located to the galactic east of the Sol System. The 0° "north" in Imperial maps does not correspond to the 0° in the real-world.
The galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system in spherical coordinates, with the Sun as its center, the primary direction aligned with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy, and the fundamental plane parallel to an approximation of the galactic plane but offset to its north.
The find, announced Wednesday, can help explain how solar systems across the Milky Way galaxy came to be. This one is 100 light-years away in the constellation Coma Berenices. A light-year is 5.8 ...
Galactic Tick Day is an awareness and education day that celebrates the movement of the Solar System around the Milky Way galaxy. [1] [2] [3] [4]The day occurs at a regular interval of 1.7361 years (or 633.7 days), [5] which is called a galactic tick.