Our Galaxy May Be 10 Times Bigger Than We Thought

The Milky Way is often described as measuring 100,000 light years across and containing the mass of a trillion Suns. But our home galaxy is actually far bigger, and might be much less massive. Astronomers aren't sure what the exact stats are, and a lot of it's to do with that pesky, pesky dark matter.

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[LFTRnow]

“Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun. Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-two million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet"...

[traviscecil]

Milky Way: "Does this dark matter halo make my diameter look big?"
Scientist: ***silence***

[_andrewvia]

Researchers: Time to rewrite the textbooks!
New textbooks: All our latest calculations are wrong.
Campus bookstore: We're not using this textbook next semester. See if you can sell it somewhere else such as online.

[RILDIGITAL]

Incredible how technology and continuous exploration constantly reshape our understanding of our own galaxy. It's fascinating how much uncertainty still exists despite our advanced scientific capabilities.

[just_kos]

Eric Idle might have to update "The Galaxy Song." "...it's a 100, 000 light years side-to-side! It bulges in the middle 16, 000 ly thick but out by us it's just 3, 000 ly wide...."

Or, as Douglas Adams said, we're in the unfashionable end of the western spiral arm.

[Purpose_Porpoise]

RIP to the people who said it'll only take us a million years to explore the whole thing without ftl travel. "Only" being used relatively.

[gravestone]

This discovery makes your mom jokes 10 times bigger as well. This changes everything....

[stephenbrickwood]

If you think about how far the universe reaches up, and down on the other side of the earth you can get the feeling of falling forever.
It makes me feel incredibly small.

This is an old feeling from my childhood. 😮

[dubsar]

So, it's like the Oort Cloud, but galactic?

[RoadtrippinwithTakacs]

As an advocate against light pollution, this intro made me sad that you have to go to the middle of nowhere to see our amazing galaxy. 🥹 Good thing we get to travel to see it. Most people have never seen the core. It's amazing! 🌌😍

[Beautyaddixion]

The universe is so vast, yet I am the first one here.

[bettyswallocks]

We need to build a galactic selfie stick.

[Thaumh]

When the Rubin Observatory comes on line, they should serve pastrami with swiss and sauerkraut on rye at the opening ceremony party.

[watcherofwatchers]

Until "dark matter" is actually detected and proven to exist, I am not going to consider hypothetical concepts with just a couple properties as a fundamental component of our galaxy.

[Petch]

Like measuring the size of a cloud 🤷‍♂.

[ccadmin]

I always thought the universe was big, yet yo mama still bigger😢

[prdoyle]

1:06 - one of your writers really loves the word "proverbial". I don't think I've ever heard a proverb about suburbs?

[cinemaipswich]

The stars in the outer rims of the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxies are already interweaving.

[Grunttamer]

All I know about the milkyway galaxy is: It’s 100 thousand light years side to side. It bulges in the middle, 16 thousand light years thick but out by us it’s just 3 thousand light years wide.

[davidkachel]

Unless galaxies have "Now Entering" and "Now Leaving" signs at their edges, I'm guessing that all guesses as to size are legitimate.