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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 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.
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 ...
Orion Arm. 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 10,000 light-years (3,100 parsecs) in length. [2] This galactic structure encompasses the Solar System, including Earth.
The Sagittarius Dwarf Spheroidal Galaxy ( Sgr dSph ), also known as the Sagittarius Dwarf Elliptical Galaxy ( Sgr dE or Sag DEG ), is an elliptical loop-shaped satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. It contains four globular clusters in its main body, [8] with the brightest of them— NGC 6715 (M54)—being known well before the discovery of the ...
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.
Galactic quadrant. Longitudinal lines of the galactic coordinate system. A galactic quadrant, or quadrant of the Galaxy, is one of four circular sectors in the division of the Milky Way Galaxy. Numbered quadrants and sectors of constellations. Quadrants as starcharts, with most prominent stars marked.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to the Solar System: Solar System – gravitationally bound system comprising the Sun and the objects that orbit it, either directly or indirectly. Of those objects that orbit the Sun directly, the largest eight are the planets (including Earth), with the remainder being ...
Satellite galaxy. A satellite galaxy is a smaller companion galaxy that travels on bound orbits within the gravitational potential of a more massive and luminous host galaxy (also known as the primary galaxy). [1] Satellite galaxies and their constituents are bound to their host galaxy, in the same way that planets within our own solar system ...
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 ...
