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More recently, in November 2020, over 300 million habitable exoplanets are estimated to exist in the Milky Way Galaxy. When compared to other more distant galaxies in the universe, the Milky Way galaxy has a below average amount of neutrino luminosity making our galaxy a “neutrino desert”. Structure
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 Sun's orbital radius is roughly 8,600 parsecs, or slightly over half way to the galactic edge. One orbital period of the Solar System lasts between 225 and 250 million years. Milky Way Galaxy: 30,000 pc 9.26×10 17: 17.97: Our home galaxy, composed of 200 billion to 400 billion stars and filled with the interstellar medium.
Artist's depiction of the Milky Way Galaxy, showing the galactic longitude. A vector matching the plane of the galaxy, at 0° longitude, notably has the Galactic Center and intersects arms directly beyond. Far less of the galaxy lies at all points with opposing 180° longitude. The galactic coordinate system is a celestial coordinate system in ...
Quasars inhabit the centers of active galaxies and are among the most luminous, powerful, and energetic objects known in the universe, emitting up to a thousand times the energy output of the Milky Way, which contains 200–400 billion stars. This radiation is emitted across the electromagnetic spectrum almost uniformly, from X-rays to the far ...
At least 100 galaxy groups and clusters are located within its diameter of 33 megaparsecs (110 million light-years ). The Virgo SC is one of about 10 million superclusters in the observable universe and is in the Pisces–Cetus Supercluster Complex, a galaxy filament .
One of the largest and most massive galaxies in the local universe, it has a large population of globular clusters—about 15,000 compared with the 150–200 orbiting the Milky Way—and a jet of energetic plasma that originates at the core and extends at least 1,500 parsecs (4,900 light-years), traveling at a relativistic speed. It is one of ...
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. The Sun is part of one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur.
Estimates dating after 2000 locate the Solar System within the range 24–28.4 kilolight-years (7.4–8.7 kiloparsecs) from the Galactic Center of the Milky Way galaxy. Shift from galactocentrism to acentrism. Hubble's observations of redshift in light from distant galaxies indicated that the universe was expanding and acentric.
It lies near the open cluster Stephenson 2, which is located about 5.8 kiloparsecs (19,000 light-years) away from Earth in the Scutum–Centaurus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy, and is assumed to be one of a group of stars at a similar distance, although some studies consider it to be an unrelated or foreground red supergiant.
