

Ask HN: Why is our Galactic Coordinate System Centered on our Sun? - AnkleDeep
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galactic_coordinate_system

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dalke
Where else would it be? We know where the Sun is, with high precision.

Interstellar distances get more and more uncertain the further away things are
from the Solar System. Using the Sun as the origin gives a built-in estimate
of the error. If we used, say, the center of the galaxy as the origin then the
uncertainty in its location would overwhelm any calculations about the
distance from the Sun to, say, Barnard's Star.

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informatimago
Because we cannot travel out of the solar system.

Also note how astronomers use the parsec as unit (which depends only on the
radius of Earth orbit, and has no other physical significance) instead of the
light.year which is much more interesting a unit, for the would be astronaut.

