Our Home

My postcard (collection) shows the beautiful universe we live in, our home.

We live in the Milky Way, a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter of about 100,000 light-years containing more than 100 billion stars. Our Solar System resides in one of the Milky Way's outer spiral arms, known as the Orion–Cygnus Arm or Local Spur.

 

The Solar System is the gravitationally bound system of the Sun and the objects that orbit it. The largest of such objects are the eight planets, in order from the Sun: four terrestrial planets named Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, two gas giants named Jupiter and Saturn, and two ice giants named Uranus and Neptune. 

Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being a water world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all of Earth's water is contained in its global ocean, covering 70.8% of Earth's surface.