Milky Way Is Twice the Size We Thought

Peter writes to tell us about a research group at the University of Sydney in Australia, who in the middle of some calculation wanted to check the numbers everybody uses for the thickness of our galaxy at the core. Using data available freely on the Internet and analyzing it in a spreadsheet, they discovered in a matter of hours that the Milky Way is 12,000 light years thick, vs. the 6,000 that had been the consensus number for some time.

Comments

Re:Wikipedia says 1000

[drinkypoo]

Besides; that's the way reality works in general. When somebody claims some fact it ALWAYS means that based on the sources that that person choose to believe (be it his own eyes or a scientific paper, or Fox-news) says so.

You just gave the best argument as to why no one should have to do this.

Science itself is continually evolving. Remember, we used to think that planets moved in circular orbits; before that, we thought the earth was the center of the universe. And I bet before mankind built ships and started sailing over horizons that we really did think the land was flat. But back in those days they didn't have to say "Thag believe the earth is flat, so we build building with flat bottom." Thag simply said the earth was flat. You can say things are when there is scientific consensus.

On the other hand, Wikipedia authors should REALLY know better than to cite NASA. They couldn't find their ass with both hands and a map of the milky way.