Perseus Arm facts for kids
The Perseus Arm is one of the two main spiral arms of our home galaxy, the Milky Way. Think of the Milky Way as a giant pinwheel, and these arms are like the spokes. The other major arm is called the Scutum–Centaurus Arm.
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Our Milky Way Galaxy
The Milky Way is a special type of galaxy known as a barred spiral galaxy. This means it has a central bar-shaped structure made of stars, and then spiral arms curving outwards from the ends of this bar. Our galaxy has two main arms and several smaller arms or "spurs."
Where is the Perseus Arm?
The Perseus Spiral Arm is located between two smaller arms, the Cygnus Arm and the Carina–Sagittarius Arm. It stretches out about 10,700 parsecs from the center of the galaxy. To give you an idea, one parsec is about 3.26 light-years, so this arm is incredibly far away!
The Perseus Arm gets its name because when we look at it from Earth, it appears in the same direction as the constellation Perseus in the night sky.
Our Home: The Orion–Cygnus Arm
Our own Solar System, including Earth, is located in a smaller arm called the Orion–Cygnus Arm. Scientists think this arm might be a branch coming off the Perseus Arm, but they are still studying this to be sure.
What's in the Perseus Arm?
The Perseus Spiral Arm is home to many interesting objects in space. These include several famous Messier objects, which are a list of deep-sky objects observed by the French astronomer Charles Messier.
Famous Objects
Some of the cool things you can find in the Perseus Arm are:
- The Crab Nebula (also known as M1), which is the remains of a huge star that exploded.
- Messier 36
- Messier 37
- Messier 38
- Messier 52
- Messier 103
The Perseus Arm also contains a giant star that is about 100 times bigger than our own Sun!
See also
In Spanish: Brazo de Perseo para niños
