Starship Asterisk*

Thanks, Art. Learned something new.

--Bill

[quote="Westwind"][url=http://asterisk.apod.com/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=18373&p=116094#p116094][b]In one of the topics below[/b][/url], the author mentioned that the solar system is in--or moving into--the Orion Arm of our galaxy.

I thought our solar system occupied a relatively fixed position in the Orion Arm, and that the arm itself rotated around the core of our galaxy carrying the Sun and other stars along with it.

Is our solar system, however, moving independently through the Orion Arm, and at some point will move out of it into another arm of the galaxy?[/quote]
[list]The arms are density waves that move at their own pace
(or sometimes not at all) as stars orbit in elliptical paths:

[list][img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8a/Spiral_galaxy_arms_diagram.svg/220px-Spiral_galaxy_arms_diagram.svg.png[/img][/list][/list]

In one of the topics below, the author mentioned that the solar system is in--or moving into--the Orion Arm of our galaxy.

I thought our solar system occupied a relatively fixed position in the Orion Arm, and that the arm itself rotated around the core of our galaxy carrying the Sun and other stars along with it.

Is our solar system, however, moving independently through the Orion Arm, and at some point will move out of it into another arm of the galaxy?

--Bill