Where is earth located in the milky way

It has only been through decades of observation, reconstruction and comparison to other galaxies that they have been to get a clear picture of what the Milky Way looks like from the outside. From ongoing surveys of the night sky with ground-based telescopes, and more recent missions involving space telescopes, astronomers now estimate that there are between and billion stars in the Milky Way.

They also think that each star has at least one planet, which means there are likely to be hundreds of billions of planets in the Milky Way — billions of which are believed to be the size and mass of the Earth. Our galaxy is roughly , light years across, and we can only see about 6, light years into the disk in the visible spectrum. Still, when light pollution is not significant, the dusty ring of the Milky Way can be discerned in the night sky.

Nobody knows precisely what dark matter is, but its mass has been inferred by observations of how fast the galaxy rotates and other general behaviors. More importantly, it is believed that this mass helps keep the galaxy from tearing itself apart as it rotates.

The Solar System and Earth is located about 25, light-years to the galactic center and 25, light-years away from the rim. Astronomers have agreed that the Milky Way probably has two major spiral arms — Perseus arm and the Scutum-Centaurus arm — with several smaller arms and spurs. The Solar System is located in a region in between the two arms called the Orion-Cygnus arm.

This arm measures 3, light-years across and is 10, light-years in length, where it breaks off from the Sagittarius Arm. The fact that the Milky Way divides the night sky into two roughly equal hemispheres indicates that the Solar System lies near the galactic plane. The Milky Way has a relatively low surface brightness due to the gases and dust that fills the galactic disk.

That prevents us from seeing the bright galactic center or from observing clearly what is on the other side of it. The last time the Solar System was in this position in the Milky Way, there were still dinosaurs on Earth. The next time, who knows?

Humanity might be extinct, or it might have evolved into something else entirely. As you can see, the Milky Way alone is a very big place. And discerning our location within it has been no simple task.

Not only is the Universe much larger than we could have ever imagined, but our place within in continues to shrink! Our Solar System, it seems, is both insignificant in the grand scheme of things, but also extremely precious! We have written many articles about the Milky Way for Universe Today. Listen here, Episode The Milky Way. That definitely complicates things in our plans for Universal relevance.

And all this sure does make Andromeda seem close by…. Oh, and about every spot in the universe being the center of the Universe? Well, we'll save that one for another episode. Explore further. More from Astronomy and Astrophysics. Use this form if you have come across a typo, inaccuracy or would like to send an edit request for the content on this page.

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