Slashdot Mirror
Milky Way Heavier Than Thought, and Spinning Faster
An anonymous reader writes "The Milky Way is spinning much faster and has 50 per cent more mass than previously believed. This means the Milky Way is equivalent in size to our neighbor Andromeda — instead of being the little sister in the local galaxy group, as had been believed. One implication of this new finding is that we may collide with Andromeda sooner than we had thought, in 2 or 3 billion years instead of 5."
"...the galaxy is rotating at a speed of 965,600 km/h, compared to previous estimates of 804,672 km/h, the astronomers report."
Anyone else think it odd that the previous estimate had six significant digits, yet was apparently off by ~20%?
The odd thing is not the estimate (500,000 mph has one significant digit) but its conversion to km/h.