<P> In addition to the stellar halo, the Chandra X-ray Observatory, XMM - Newton, and Suzaku have provided evidence that there is a gaseous halo with a large amount of hot gas . The halo extends for hundreds of thousand of light years, much further than the stellar halo and close to the distance of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds . The mass of this hot halo is nearly equivalent to the mass of the Milky Way itself . The temperature of this halo gas is between 1 and 2.5 million K (1.8 and 4.5 million F). </P> <P> Observations of distant galaxies indicate that the Universe had about one - sixth as much baryonic (ordinary) matter as dark matter when it was just a few billion years old . However, only about half of those baryons are accounted for in the modern Universe based on observations of nearby galaxies like the Milky Way . If the finding that the mass of the halo is comparable to the mass of the Milky Way is confirmed, it could be the identity of the missing baryons around the Milky Way . </P> <P> The Sun is near the inner rim of the Orion Arm, within the Local Fluff of the Local Bubble, and in the Gould Belt, at a distance of 26.4 ± 1.0 kly (8.09 ± 0.31 kpc) from the Galactic Center . The Sun is currently 5--30 parsecs (16--98 ly) from the central plane of the Galactic disk . The distance between the local arm and the next arm out, the Perseus Arm, is about 2,000 parsecs (6,500 ly). The Sun, and thus the Solar System, is located in the Milky Way's galactic habitable zone . </P> <P> There are about 208 stars brighter than absolute magnitude 8.5 within a sphere with a radius of 15 parsecs (49 ly) from the Sun, giving a density of one star per 69 cubic parsecs, or one star per 2,360 cubic light - years (from List of nearest bright stars). On the other hand, there are 64 known stars (of any magnitude, not counting 4 brown dwarfs) within 5 parsecs (16 ly) of the Sun, giving a density of about one star per 8.2 cubic parsecs, or one per 284 cubic light - years (from List of nearest stars). This illustrates the fact that there are far more faint stars than bright stars: in the entire sky, there are about 500 stars brighter than apparent magnitude 4 but 15.5 million stars brighter than apparent magnitude 14 . </P>

Which part of the milky way galaxy is our sun located