Milky Way
An international team of astronomers has determined that the Milky Way's star-forming disk ends around 35,000 to 40,000 light-years from the galactic center. Using stellar age mapping, they found a U-shaped pattern where star formation drops sharply beyond this boundary. Stars farther out are mostly older migrants drifting from inner regions.
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Astronomers have found evidence suggesting that the Sun participated in a large-scale migration of similar stars from the Milky Way's inner regions about 4 to 6 billion years ago. This movement likely carried the solar system to a calmer part of the galaxy. The discovery comes from a detailed study of solar twins using data from the European Space Agency's Gaia satellite.
New research suggests the closest technological civilization in the Milky Way could be about 33,000 light years from Earth. For such a society to coexist with humanity, it would need to have endured for at least 280,000 years. The findings, presented at a joint meeting in Helsinki, underscore the rarity of extraterrestrial intelligence.