27/02/2026
The Sun has only 22 laps left in its 10-billion-year journey around the Milky Way.
While we track our lives in annual rotations around the Sun, our entire solar system is embarked on a much grander voyage. Moving at a staggering 514,000 miles per hour, the Sun takes approximately 230 million years to complete a single cosmic year around the center of the Milky Way. To put this vast timeline into perspective, the last time our star was in its current galactic position, the very first dinosaurs were just beginning to emerge on Earth. Since its formation 4.6 billion years ago, the Sun has completed only about 20 of these massive laps.
Scientific models of stellar evolution suggest our star is currently middle-aged, with about 5 billion years of fuel remaining in its 10-billion-year lifespan. This means the Sun has roughly 22 orbits left before it exhausts its hydrogen and transforms into a red giant. Human civilization has existed for only a tiny sliver of a single orbit, yet we are witnessing a journey that spans tens of thousands of light-years through spiral arms and star clusters. We are currently halfway through a cosmic odyssey that makes all of recorded history seem like a fleeting moment in the life of the galaxy.
source: NASA. (2023). Our Galactic Home. NASA Solar System Exploration.
