Our Sun is but one of a collection of about 200 billion stars known as the Milky Way, around which it revolves once every ¼ billion years or so, taking its retinue of planets with it

Above is a photo of our own Milky Way Galaxy in infrared taken edge-on from within. The Milky Way is 100,000 light years from end to end, 10,000 light years thick at the center, and 3000 light years thick in the spiral arms. Our solar system resides half-way to the outer edge on one of those spiral arms. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, or six trillion miles. So our galaxy is 600 quadrillion miles wide, approximately. Credit E. L. Wright (UCLA), The COBE Project, DIRBE, NASA; APOD Jan. 30, 2000 http://www.myastrologybook.com/galactic-center-great-central-Sun.htm