Local Group of Galaxies: Milky Way
The Milky Way Galaxy is a barred spiral type containing between one and four hundred billion stars including our own Solar System. The plane of the Milky Way galaxy is visible from Earth as a band of light in the night sky, and it is the appearance of this band of light which has inspired the name for our galaxy. The Sun is situated close to the inner rim of the Galaxy's Orion Arm, in the Local Fluff or the Gould Belt, at a distance of about 25000 light-years from the Galactic Center, The distance between the local arm and the next arm out, the Perseus Arm, is about 6,500 light-years. The Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy are a binary system of giant spiral galaxies belonging to a group of 50 closely bound galaxies known as the Local Group, itself being part of the Virgo Supercluster. Two smaller galaxies, the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds, and a number of dwarf galaxies in the Local Group orbit the Milky Way.
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