A few of two million stars - 10,000 times more densely packed than the stars surrounding our solar system
image by NASA - Hubble Heritage
If the
area of the cutout above (13 light years wide, containing 50,000 stars)
was located in the space around the earth,
it would be completely black and empty, except for six tiny dots like the one
encircled below representing the Alpha Centauri system,
which is the closest solar system to our own. We live in an empty dessert-like
celestial landscape with a corresponding unstable space weather.
Interstellar space weather cycles are determined by the dynamics of the plasma electric Birkeland currents that power the stars.