As the title states, how much of our galaxy are we referring to if we speak of a portion "hundreds of star systems" in size? The Orion Arm? The whole quadrant?
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1$\begingroup$ You might have been better off posting this on Astronomy. But, I already posted the answer too. $\endgroup$ – JDługosz Feb 2 '17 at 8:31
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1$\begingroup$ @JDługosz Please don't answer and VTC the same question. $\endgroup$ – Frostfyre Feb 2 '17 at 13:00
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$\begingroup$ Well, I ask for purposes of world-building. I got what I needed, thanks! $\endgroup$ – St0necr0w Feb 2 '17 at 15:16
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A tiny speck. Maybe 25 light years in radius around us?
See Atlas of the Universe: there are 109 within 20 light years. So use that as an average density, and 40 ly radius would have about 900. Anywhere between 20 and 40 would contain “hundreds”.
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There are currently 56 known stars withing 17 light-years from Earth. The Milky Way contains 100 to 400 billion stars; 100 stars is 1 billionth of our galaxy.
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It's a house, a small one, on a very small street of a very small village. In a scale of our stellar system. Now you can imagine the scale.
