Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
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.
Nearby dwarf galaxies are still being discovered, and galaxies located behind the central plane of the Milky Way are extremely difficult to discern. It is possible for any galaxy to mask another located beyond it. Intergalactic distance measurements are subject to large uncertainties.
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.
The Andromeda Galaxy is approaching the Milky Way at about 110 kilometres (68 miles) per second. [128] It has been measured approaching relative to the Sun at around 300 km/s (190 mi/s) [1] as the Sun orbits around the center of the galaxy at a speed of approximately 225 km/s (140 mi/s).
z = 4.92. These were the most remote objects discovered at the time. The pair of galaxies were found lensed by galaxy cluster CL1358+62 (z = 0.33). This was the first time since 1964 that something other than a quasar held the record for being the most distant object in the universe. [131] [134] [135] [132] [129] [136]
To-scale diagram of distance between planets, with the white bar showing orbital variations. The size of the planets is not to scale. The astronomical unit (AU; equal to 150,000,000 km; 93,000,000 mi) is what the distance from the Earth to the Sun would be if the planet's orbit were perfectly circular. [55]
Proxima Centauri is orbiting through the Milky Way at a distance from the Galactic Centre that varies from 27 to 31 kly (8.3 to 9.5 kpc), with an orbital eccentricity of 0.07. Alpha Centauri
To visualize that scale, if the Sun were a ping-pong ball, Proxima Centauri would be a pea about 1,100 km (680 mi) away, and the Milky Way would be about 30 million km (19 million mi) wide. Although stars are more common near the centers of each galaxy, the average distance between stars is still 160 billion (1.6 × 10 11) km (100 billion mi ...
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 Orion Nebula (also known as Messier 42, M42, or NGC 1976) is a diffuse nebula situated in the Milky Way, being south of Orion's Belt in the constellation of Orion, [b] and is known as the middle "star" in the "sword" of Orion. It is one of the brightest nebulae and is visible to the naked eye in the night sky with apparent magnitude 4.0.