At the equator, the earth rotates at about 1,040 mph.  As it is rotating, it travels along its 583,400,000 orbit at about 66,000 mph.

As it orbits the sun, the earth is also moving toward the constellation Hercules at about 45,000 mph, or 12.5 miles per second.

The Milky Way as a whole is moving toward the constellation Leo at about 375 miles per second.

The Local Group, the galactic cluster to which the Milky Way belongs, is speeding along toward the constellation Hydra at 600km/sec.  That's 1.34 million miles per hour.

It took Voyager II, travelling at an average speed of 42,000 mph, 12 years to reach Neptune.

A light year is 5,865,696,000,000 miles

Earth to Moon - 238,000 miles
Earth to Sun - 93 million miles, or 8 light minutes
Earth to Pluto - 5 1/2 light hours
Earth to next nearest star = 4 light years (do you know which star?)
Earth to center of Milky Way = 26,000 light years


Width of Milky Way = 100,000 light years
Large Magellanic Cloud = 163,000 light years away
Andromeda galaxy = 2.5 million light years away
Width of the Local Group = 5 million light years

Our Milky Way is part of a cluster of galaxies known as the Local Group. There are now about 40 recognized members of this system. It's largest galaxies are the two spiral galaxies of our own Milky Way and nearby Andromeda. The other galaxies orbit these two galaxies. The center of the Local Group is roughly between the Milky Way and Andromeda.