The Milky Way galaxy moves the Sun. The Sun orbits the center of the Milky Way in the Galactic year, which takes 225-250 million Earth years. Due to the Sun’s gravitational pull, the planets follow it through the galaxy. Yet, the planets orbit the Sun elliptically. Each planet’s orbit changes the Sun’s distance from it. The Sun’s gravitational pull keeps the planets in orbit around it, and their dance around the galaxy is intricate.
Star positions slowly vary as the Sun and planets move across the Milky Way. Throughout a lifetime, the changes are too minor to see. We designate constellations to groups of stars based on their apparent positions in the night sky. As the stars’ locations vary, these patterns will slowly change over extended periods of time.
The Sun orbits the Milky Way counterclockwise from above the galaxy’s plane. The Sun and solar system are traveling opposing the Milky Way’s spiral arms. The Sun and planets’ passage across the cosmos is not predictable. Instead, other stars’ gravitational pull, interstellar gas, dust, and dark matter affect it. Hence, the Sun’s galactic path is erratic and convoluted.
Astronomers’ decades-long measurements. New observations and methodologies have improved our understanding of the solar system’s travel across the Milky Way. Early 20th-century Dutch astronomer Jacobus Kapteyn helped us understand the Sun’s path across the cosmos. Kapteyn was one of the first astronomers to use star counts to map the Milky Way and estimate the Sun’s speed.
Since Kapteyn, many astronomers and scholars have used observational and theoretical methods to investigate the Sun and planets’ travel across the Milky Way. We now understand how the solar system moves and fits within the galaxy. As we travel through the Milky Way, the Sun and solar system may encounter other objects. The chance and possibility for a collision rely on numerous elements, including the galaxy’s density and dispersion of objects, their speed and direction of movement, and their gravitational pulls.
The Milky Way is huge, thus the chances of the Sun colliding with another star or planet are very low. The solar system’s galactic motion poses considerable concerns. The solar system passes through molecular clouds, which can affect comets and other outer solar system orbits. Despite the risks, the solar system’s long-term velocity through the galaxy is steady, and the chances of a catastrophic collision are negligible. Scientists analyze the solar system’s travel through the Milky Way and its risks to better comprehend our location in the cosmos and uncover potential threats.
The Voyager spacecraft are heading across interstellar space, although they are still close to our solar system. They cannot observe the galaxy’s stars and planets like ground-based and space-based observatories. The Voyager spacecraft have indirectly shown the Sun’s velocity through the galaxy. As they moved through the interstellar medium, spacecraft recorded changes in density, temperature, and magnetic field. These variations, induced by the Sun and the solar system’s passage through the galaxy, reveal our solar system’s environment.
Verifying scientific hypotheses concerning the Sun’s journey across the galaxy usually needs observational data, theoretical models, and computer simulations. The Voyager probes have contributed significant data about the furthest reaches of our solar system and the interstellar medium, but they are only one part of our continuous attempts to understand the cosmos.