What is the difference between our solar system and our galaxy?

9 Responses to What is the difference between our solar system and our galaxy?

1. That One Loser

   July 5, 2011 at 2:30 pm

   Our solar system is located on the Milky Way.

   Our solar system is a collection of planets (and other objects) orbiting one star – the Sun. The Sun is only one of the billions of stars that make up the Milky Way galaxy.

   In other words, our solar system is a very small part of the Milky Way galaxy.

   Since our sun is named Sol, then name of our solar system would be Sol, or the Sol System.
2. My name is not bruce

   July 5, 2011 at 3:08 pm

   Our solar system is the planets between mercury to neptune……the asteroid belt between mars and jupiter……the kuiper belt…basically everything in which our sun is the dominant gravitational force.

   The milky way galaxy is the larger structure that we are a part of….its made up of many stars and planets…comets and aesteroids……. So “milky way” is name of our galaxy…other galaxies have their own names. I’m not sure on the # of solar systems.
3. coldfieldgirl

   July 5, 2011 at 3:28 pm

   A galaxy consists of billion stars

   There are many galaxies in the entire universe

   For some stars there are planets possible riding around it

   Our sun is our own star

   The area with all the planets and other objects around the sun is called ‘our solar system’. In this solar system there also are comets and asteroids.

   Our sun is one of the billion stars in our galaxy. Our galaxy is called our ‘milky way’, with the shape of a thin pancake.

   The sun (and so also us on earth) sits somewhere halfway from center in our milky way, in one of the spiral arms

   The stars we see at night are all stars of our own milky way. The planets we see stand of course closer. Other galaxies of the universe are easily visible in telescopes, they only seem to sit between the stars, but they really stand much further.
4. Robsteriark

   July 5, 2011 at 3:44 pm

   The Solar System is what we call our own Sun and planetary system, it’s one of billions of similar systems within our own galaxy.

   The Milky Way is the edge on view in the sky of our own galaxy, we get this view as our galaxy is flattened like a disc and our solar system is located towards the outer edge of the disc.

   Our galaxy is one of many billions of galaxies within our single Universe, but there are theories which strongly suggest that there may well be many other universes.
5. Elizabeth H

   July 5, 2011 at 4:20 pm

   what our solar system is called – Our solar system is nestled inside a very large galaxy of stars called the Milky Way.

   what exactly is a galaxy – A galaxy is a cluster of stars, nebulae, dark matter, and other astronomical objects.

   where is our place in it? – The galaxy in which we live is probably a typical spiral galaxy, although recent research shows it has a small bar across the center, making it a barred spiral. It is an island of tens of billions of stars together with gas and dust.
   It is roughly the shape of a “flying saucer”, with a bulge in the middle of a flat disc. Stars and dust are arranged into spirals within the disc, which measures about 100,000 light years across. Ancient globular star clusters form a halo around the Galaxy.
   We live near a star (the Sun) roughly half way out along the disc. When we look at the night sky we can see a mass of distant stars in the disc, partly hidden by clouds of dust. These stars we call the Milky Way, and this is how our galaxy gets its name. It is sometimes just called the Galaxy.
   The Milky Way is the second largest galaxy in the small cluster to which it belongs.

   How many solar systems are there? – Several other stars have disk-shaped clouds around them that seem to be solar systems in formation. In 1983, an infrared telescope in space photographed such a disk around Vega, the brightest star in the constellation Lyra. This discovery represented the first direct evidence of such material around any star except the sun. In 1984, astronomers photographed a similar disk around Beta Pictoris, a star in the southern constellation Pictor.
   By the early 2000′s, astronomers had discovered that more than 50 stars like our sun have planets orbiting them. In almost all cases, they found only one planet per star. All the planets found are probably gaseous with no solid surface.
6. oyston out!

   July 5, 2011 at 4:45 pm

   Our galaxy is massive with about 100 million odd stars in it. We are in one of the spiral arms (outer edge) of the galaxy. The solar system is 1 star (the sun) being orbited by 8/9 planets whichever you believe is the true value. Also galaxy is a smooth creamy chocolate bar, the solar system ain’t got one.
7. Geoff G

   July 5, 2011 at 5:33 pm

   Our Solar System consists of one star, the Sun, eight planets, and a bunch of smaller stuff. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, contains billions of solar systems similar to ours, and is vastly larger in size.
8. Mussab

   July 5, 2011 at 5:53 pm

   A galaxy is a huge system of gases, stars and dust.
   A galaxy cannot be measured kilometers or miles but in light years. The solar system is at the edge of the milky way galaxy and the solar system can be measured in miles or kilometers. think of the word The Solar System. The word “the” can be used only when it’s one thing in the hole world so there is 1 solar system.
9. Boatman1

   July 5, 2011 at 6:19 pm

   Several good answers above– to help you visualize THE UNIVERSE and our place in it– watch this video by Tony Darnell on my Astronomy blog–

   Big Universe–

   http://neighborsgo.com/video/721