At present, our Solar System is in its twentieth orbit of the Milky Way near the inner edge of a spiral feature known as the Orion Arm or, less poetically, the Local Arm. The ghostly arms are not permanent features of a disc galaxy like the Milky Way. Rather, they are concentrations of gas and dust where stars form, produced by disturbances within the Milky Way, or on occasions by a jolt from outside, such as a supernova or the passage of the Solar System through one of the dusty gas clouds that congregate in spiral arms.
Avi Shporer, Research Scientist, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research. A Google Scholar, Avi was formerly a NASA Sagan Fellow at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). His motto, not surprisingly, is a quote from Carl Sagan: “Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.”
The Galaxy Report newsletter brings you daily news of space and science that has the capacity to provide clues to the mystery of our existence and add a much needed cosmic perspective in our current Anthropocene Epoch.
Andromeda’s Orbiting Dwarf Galaxies – “Point to Something Profound”
Shards of Planet Mercury on Earth to Giant Binary Planets May Make Their Star Systems Ultra-Habitable (The Galaxy Report)
New Insights from a Dark-Matter-Free Galaxy Revives Controversial Gravity Theory (Weekend Feature)
Could An Alien Civilization Change the Laws of Physics to Gravity Powered Batteries (Planet Earth Report)
Our Sun as Never Seen Before (and a New Discovery)Did the Milky Way Lose Its Original Black Hole to Will the James Webb Space Telescope Reveal Another Earth? (The Galaxy Report)
Radio Galaxies of the Early Universe -Would Take Several Million Years to Cross at Speed of Light
Before the “Bang” –The Primordial Universe NASA Probing How Life Began on Earth to Alpha Centauri a Billion Years Older than Our Solar System (The Galaxy Report)“Simultaneously Beautiful and Terrifying” –First Image of Milky Way’s Supermassive Black Hole to A New Earth Rises (Planet Earth Report)