Space: Who Knew, #4

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Just what does the Milky Way look like?

If we were to look at it from the outside...

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080606.html
http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/milkyway.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap080605.html

The first link is an illustration that depicts the Milky Way galaxy in amazing detail.

"Astronomers still place the Sun about a third of the way in from the Milky Way's outer edge, in a minor arm called the Orion Spur."

Check out the second link as well, this provides what evidence has been unearthed backing the shape and structure of the Milky Way. Keep in mind that one light year equals 9,460,730,472,580.8 km or 5,878,625,373,183.61 miles. I know its giving me a headache too. Thats 9.4 trillion km and 5.8 trillion miles...

"The Sun is just one of 200 billion (200,000,000,000) stars in this typical barred-spiral galaxy that is about 90,000 light years in diameter. "

5.8 Trillion mulitplied by 90 thousand isssss.... a very freaking large number! The last link depicts a section of sky about the width of your fist held out at arms length. And this image required some 800,000 frames of data to compile.

Yeah, I'd wager we're not the only new kids on the block. This is just our own galaxy people, one galaxy...


Who knew???
(I guess some smart astronomers did)