The Sun's place in the Milky Way
The Sun may be found close to the inner rim of the Orion Arm, in the Local Fluff, at a distance of 7.94±0.42 kpc from the Galactic Center. The distance between the local arm and the next arm out, the Perseus Arm, is about 6,500 light-years. Our Sun, and thus the solar system, is found in what scientists call the galactic habitable zone.The Apex of the Sun's Way, or the solar apex, refers to the direction that the Sun travels through space in the Milky Way. The general direction of the sun's galactic motion is towards the star Vega near the constellation of Hercules, at an angle of roughly 86 degrees to the direction of the Galactic Center. The sun's orbit around the galaxy is expected to be roughly elliptical with the addition of perturbations due to the galactic spiral arms and non-uniform mass distributions.It takes the solar system about 225-250 million years to complete one orbit, and so is thought to have completed about 20-25 orbits during its lifetime or .0008 orbit since the origin of man. The orbital speed of the solar system is 217 km/s, i.e. 1 light-year in ca. 1400 years, and 1 AU in 8 days.The Hayden Planetarium uses 8.0 kpc in their interactive 3D Milky Way Atlas, which just includes the Galactic Center.