The Scale of the Universe From our Solar System to the edges of the observable universe Our Solar System Our Average distance from the Earth: Average distance from the Sun: Moon - 240,000 miles Jupiter - 483.3 million miles Sun - 93,000,000 miles (93 million) Pluto - 3,666,000,000 miles (3.6 billion miles) Our Galaxy - The Milky Way Distance from the Sun to the nearest star (Proxima Centauri) 25,606,000,000,000 miles (25.6 trillion miles) OR 4.34 light-years 1 light-year = the distance light travels in one year The Milky Way Galaxy is 100,000 light-years in diameter! The Local Group of Galaxies The Milky Way has a number of smaller satellite galaxies orbiting it. The largest one is 170,000 ly away from Earth. Large Magellanic Cloud Small Magellanic Cloud The Local Group of Galaxies The Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies are the largest in the local group The Local Group of Galaxies Andromeda Galaxy Local Group: about 30 galaxies; 10 million ly in diameter Virgo Supercluster of Galaxies The local group is one of many galaxy groups within our supercluster Virgo Supercluster: hundreds of galaxies; over 100 million ly in diameter The Rest of the Observable Universe The universe contains millions of galactic superclusters! Image Descriptions • Slide 2; model of the Solar System • 3; model of the Milky Way Galaxy with the Sun’s position labeled • 4; Large and Small Magellanic Clouds (satellite galaxies of the Milky Way) • 5; model showing distance between the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies • 6; Andromeda Galaxy (in the constellation Andromeda) • 7; Virgo Supercluster (in the constellation Virgo) • 8; Hubble Deep Field (one of the most distant images ever taken where every bit of light represents an entire galaxy).