Synonyms
Definition
The solar neighborhood is the space associated with a cylinder centered at the Sun and perpendicular to the Milky Way disk. This solar cylinder is located at 8.2 kpc from the galactic center, with a radius of ~1 kpc. Hence, the solar vicinity includes diverse physical entities that belong to the galactic disk and halo, such as planets and moons; stars of different masses, ages, chemical elements, and evolutionary stages; interstellar medium of different properties: HII regions, neutral gas, molecular gas, and dust; among others.
Overview
The solar neighborhood contains baryonic matter (stars and gas) and dark matter. The total mass surface density is roughly 70 M⊙ pc2, of which the stars take 50%, 20% is in gaseous material, and 30% is in dark matter.
The solar cylinder contains two main baryonic structures: first, a disk componentwhere approximately 98% of the total stellar mass of the solar neighborhood is found in Population I stars embedded in...
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References and Further Reading
Bland-Hawthorn J, Gerhard O (2016) The galaxy in context: structural, kinematic, and integrated properties. Annu Rev Astron Astrophys 54:529–596
Carigi L et al (2019) The last 5 Gyr of galactic chemical evolution based on H II region abundances derived from a temperature independent method. Astrophys J 873:107 (11pp)
Fernández-Alvar E et al (2018) Disentangling the galactic halo with APOGEE. II. Chemical and star formation histories for the two distinct populations. Astrophys J 852:50 (12pp)
Hayden M R et al (2015) Chemical cartography with APOGEE: metallicity distribution functions and the chemical structure of the Milky Way disk. Astrophys J 808:132 (18pp)
Helmi A (2020) Streams, substructures, and the early history of the Milky Way. Annu Rev Astron Astrophys 58:205–256
Kubryk M et al (2015) Evolution of the Milky Way with radial motions of stars and gas. I. The solar neighbourhood and the thin and thick disks. Astron Astrophys 580:A126 (26pp)
Martinez-Medina LA (2017) Dynamics and morphology of the Milky Way spiral arms from the metallicity distribution and radial mixing. MNRAS 468:3615–3627
Matteucci F (2012) Chemical evolution of galaxies. Springer, New York
Spitoni E et al (2019) Galactic Archaeology with asteroseismic ages: evidence for delayed gas infall in the formation of the Milky Way disc. Astron Astrophys 623:A60
The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia. http://exoplanet.eu/
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Carigi, L. (2023). Solar Neighborhood. In: Gargaud, M., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65093-6_1460
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-65093-6_1460
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