Cosmology: milky way size grows (Introduction)

by David Turell , Thursday, March 12, 2015, 15:12 (3333 days ago) @ David Turell

It seems to be 50% bigger than previously thought:-http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150311124139.htm-"Importantly, the findings show that the features previously identified as rings are actually part of the galactic disk, extending the known width of the Milky Way from 100,000 light years across to 150,000 light years, said Yan Xu, a scientist at the National Astronomical Observatories of China (which is part of the Chinese Academy of Science in Beijing), former visiting scientist at Rensselaer, and lead author of the paper.-"'Going into the research, astronomers had observed that the number of Milky Way stars diminishes rapidly about 50,000 light years from the center of the galaxy, and then a ring of stars appears at about 60,000 light years from the center," said Xu. "What we see now is that this apparent ring is actually a ripple in the disk. And it may well be that there are more ripples further out which we have not yet seen.'"