And, as students learn in school, the whole solar system moves in orbit around the center of our Milky Way galaxy. But in our galaxy the sun is just one of more than 100 billion stars making this journey together.

The Milky Way galaxy is bound in a cluster of about 35 galaxies. Larger clusters contain thousands of galaxies. Our solar system likely would not be so stable if it were located in a much larger, dense cluster of galaxies. But, as it is, few regions of the universe “are as amenable to complex life as ours,” state Guillermo Gonzalez and Jay W. Richards in their book The Privileged Planet.

Our Unique Solar System​—How It Got Here

MANY factors combine to make our part of the universe unique. Our solar system is located between two of the Milky Way’s spiral arms in a region that has relatively few stars. Nearly all the stars that we can see at night are so far from us that they remain mere points of light when viewed through the largest telescopes. Is that how it should be?

If our solar system were close to the center of the Milky Way, we would suffer the harmful effects of being among a dense concentration of stars. Earth’s orbit, for example, would likely be perturbed, and that would dramatically affect human life. As it is, the solar system appears to have just the right position in the galaxy to avoid this and other dangers, such as overheating when passing through gas clouds and being exposed to exploding stars and other sources of deadly radiation.