An artist's conception of the spiral structure of the Milky Way with two major stellar arms and a bar. Credit: ESO.

We can't get a view of the Milky Way from afar, but observations of the distribution of hydrogen clouds within the Milky Way have revealed that it's a spiral galaxy, rotating with pinwheel-like arms curving out in a plane from the core of the galaxy. The Milky Way looks a lot like a hurricane.

The spiral arms are lanes of dust and gas where new stars are forming. The sun—a relative newcomer—is in one of these arms.

These limbs are named according to the constellation in which they appear brightest from Earth. The sun is located in the Orion Arm of the Milky Way. This region is also home to the Great Orion Nebula.