A galaxy is a system of solar systems and other stars.
Planet earth solar system milky way galaxy.
Earth is well equipped as a planet and ideally placed in our solar system and galaxy to support life as we know it.
But where is our solar system.
Let s look at the basics.
The product of some 4 6 billion years of cosmic construction our planet is.
The first two are easy to grasp but.
There is evidence that extragalactic planets exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local milky way galaxy may exist.
Our solar system consists of our star the sun and its orbiting planets including earth along with numerous moons asteroids comet material rocks and dust our sun is just one star among the hundreds of billions of stars in our milky way galaxy.
The artist s concept also includes a new spiral arm called the far 3 kiloparsec arm discovered via a radio telescope survey of gas in the milky way.
This means there are potentially thousands of planetary systems like our solar system within the galaxy.
A galaxy is a huge collection of gas dust and billions of stars and their solar systems.
The average diameter of the orbit of the solar system relative to the galactic center.
The galaxy that contains the earth and its solar system is called the milky way.
Our galaxy the milky way also has a supermassive black hole in the middle.
That s just how many we ve found so far.
Our solar system is just one specific planetary system a star with planets orbiting around it.
This galaxy is thought to contain more than 200 billion different.
Many people are not clear about the difference between our solar system our milky way galaxy and the universe.
A galaxy is held together by gravity.
Galaxies like solar systems are held together by gravity.
Our planetary system is the only one officially called solar system but astronomers have discovered more than 2 500 other stars with planets orbiting them in our galaxy.
Earth the solar system oort cloud local fluff local bubble orion arm milky way galaxy local group virgo supercluster laniakea supercluster universe.
It s a small part of the milky way galaxy.
14 15 the nearest exoplanets are located 4 2 light years 1 3 parsecs from earth and orbit proxima centauri the closest star to the sun.
In galaxies the solar systems are separated by vast sections of mostly empty space.
Our milky way galaxy is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe.
The milky way galaxy the major arms consist of the highest densities of both young and old stars.
The sun s orbital radius is roughly 8 600 parsecs or slightly over half way to the galactic edge.
Within it there are at least 100 billion stars and on average each star has at least one planet orbiting it.
Orbit of the solar system.