Let s look at the basics.
Planet earth solar system milky way galaxy.
The first two are easy to grasp but.
That s just how many we ve found so far.
Orbit of the solar system.
We live on a planet called earth that is part of our solar system.
Within it there are at least 100 billion stars and on average each star has at least one planet orbiting it.
The sun s orbital radius is roughly 8 600 parsecs or slightly over half way to the galactic edge.
The average diameter of the orbit of the solar system relative to the galactic center.
A galaxy is held together by gravity.
Our solar system is just one specific planetary system a star with planets orbiting around it.
There is evidence that extragalactic planets exoplanets farther away in galaxies beyond the local milky way galaxy may exist.
The milky way galaxy the major arms consist of the highest densities of both young and old stars.
A galaxy is a system of solar systems and other stars.
The galaxy that contains the earth and its solar system is called the milky way.
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.
Our milky way galaxy is just one of billions of galaxies in the universe.
One orbital period of the solar system lasts between 225 and 250 million years.
Earth the solar system oort cloud local fluff local bubble orion arm milky way galaxy local group virgo supercluster laniakea supercluster universe.
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.
It s a small part of the milky way galaxy.
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.
Many people are not clear about the difference between our solar system our milky way galaxy and the universe.
Galaxies like solar systems are held together by gravity.
This means there are potentially thousands of planetary systems like our solar system within the galaxy.
The product of some 4 6 billion years of cosmic construction our planet is.
This galaxy is thought to contain more than 200 billion different.
The minor arms are primarily filled with gas and pockets of star forming activity.
Our galaxy the milky way also has a supermassive black hole in the middle.
But where is our solar system.