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The Milky Way contains at least one planet per star, resulting in 100–400 billion planets, according to a January 2013 study of the five-planet star system Kepler-32 by the Kepler space observatory. A different January 2013 analysis of Kepler data estimated that at least 17 billion Earth-sized exoplanets reside in the Milky Way.
The Milky Way has several smaller galaxies gravitationally bound to it, as part of the Milky Way subgroup, which is part of the local galaxy cluster, the Local Group.. There are 61 small galaxies confirmed to be within 420 kiloparsecs (1.4 million light-years) of the Milky Way, but not all of them are necessarily in orbit, and some may themselves be in orbit of other satellite galaxies.
Sagittarius A*, abbreviated Sgr A* ( / ˈsædʒ ˈeɪ stɑːr / SADGE-AY-star [3] ), is the supermassive black hole [4] [5] [6] at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. Viewed from Earth, it is located near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, about 5.6° south of the ecliptic, [7] visually close to the Butterfly Cluster ...
The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is a dwarf galaxy and satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. At a distance of around 50 kiloparsecs (163,000 light-years), the LMC is the second- or third-closest galaxy to the Milky Way, after the Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal (c. 16 kiloparsecs (52,000 light-years) away) and the possible dwarf irregular galaxy called the Canis Major Overdensity.
Galactic Center. 17 45 40.04, −29° 00′ 28.1″. The Galactic Center, as seen by one of the 2MASS infrared telescopes, is located in the bright upper left portion of the image. Marked location of the Galactic Center. The Galactic Center is the barycenter of the Milky Way and a corresponding point on the rotational axis of the galaxy.
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.
In astronomy, the Great Rift (sometimes called the Dark Rift or less commonly the Dark River) is a dark band caused by interstellar clouds of cosmic dust that significantly obscure ( extinguish) the center and most radial sectors of the Milky Way galaxy from Earth 's perspective. In dark, clear night skies, the rift appears as clear as the ...
Group of at least 80 galaxies of which the Milky Way is a part. Dominated by Andromeda (the largest), the Milky Way and Triangulum; the remainder are dwarf galaxies. Local Sheet: 7 Mpc 2.16×10 20: 20.33: Group of galaxies including the Local Group moving at the same relative velocity towards the Virgo Cluster and away from the Local Void.
The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies each contain a central supermassive black hole (SMBH), these being Sagittarius A* (c. 3.6 × 10 6 M ☉) and an object within the P2 concentration of Andromeda's nucleus (1–2 × 10 8 M ☉).
720,000 km/h (450,000 mi/h) [10] Orbital period. ~230 million years [10] The Solar System [d] is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. [11] It was formed 4.6 billion years ago when a dense region of a molecular cloud collapsed, forming the Sun and a protoplanetary disc.
