What other solar systems are in the milky way besides ours or is it the only solar system?

Answer 1

Yes - If we define a 'solar system' as a star ('sun') with its associated planets and other objects in orbit around it. The Milky Way (our galaxy) consists of thousands of millions of stars - of all sizes, temperatures, colours etc. For some years now astronomers have been observing some of these stars, and by various techniques (using delicate and sensitive measurements) they have now discovered hundreds of planets orbiting many of the these stars. Most of these were like Jupiter - large gas giants - but this type of planet would be much more likely to be discovered because of its size and mass. However, more recently smaller planets - more earth like - have been discovered too. So, many solar systems have been discovered in the Milky Way. If we reaise that, like our own galaxy, the Milky Way, there are thousands of millions of whole galazies out there each with thousands of millions of stars - so the possibilities of them having their own systems is very very high. Astronomers now believe that solar systems are the norm rather than a rarity.

Answer 2

Solar systems other than ours are being discovered - that is, we now know there are stars with planets in orbit about them, and some of the planets are small (i.e. not all Jupiter sized).

Plenty of other Galaxies are known! With the naked eye you can see a few of them (The Andromeda galaxy, and the large and small Magellanic clouds). With telescopes billions or hundreds of billions of other galaxies have been found.

Answer 3

There are other spiral galaxies similar to ours, but ours is the only one named Milky Way. Milky Way is just a fanciful and widely accepted name for our galaxy that is descriptive of the hazy bright path it forms in the night sky under the best viewing conditions.

Answer 4

So far, scientists have located about 400 "exoplanets", planets that are orbiting other stars. It begins to seem likely that the majority of other stars may have planetary systems of their own.

Answer 5

There are known to be about 200 billion stars in the Milky Way, and most of them are predicted to have planets. So far almost 500 planets have been discovered orbiting stars other than the sun in over 450 different solar systems.

Answer 6

There are many other solar systems in the Milky Way, estimated to be in the billions. These systems are composed of a star and planets, similar to our own Solar System. Scientists have discovered a variety of exoplanets orbiting other stars within our galaxy.