The Milky Way was a huge collection of stars, dust and gas. It was called a spiral galaxy because if you could view it from the top or bottom, it would look like a spinning pinwheel. the Soul-system was once located on one of the spiral arms, about 25,000 light-years away from the center of the galaxy.
Today most of those stars have dimed and grown dark, and only few echoes remain in the direction of the galactic core.