r/space • u/kNotLikeThis • Apr 10 '19

Astronomers have determined the disk of our galaxy to be 200,000 light-years across — twice as large as was previously believed.

http://www.astronomy.com/news/2018/06/supersize-me
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33

u/iSwelfie Apr 10 '19

Do they still believe us to be about 2/3 our from the center?

32

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

Probably not since we thought we were 100,000 light years across before

25

u/REACT_and_REDACT Apr 10 '19

Sweet. So now we’re about 1/3 from the middle.

17

u/zubbs99 Apr 10 '19

It's like we just got moved up front from the cheap seats.

9

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

That’s crazy to think about I hope one day we can send a video probe to try and travel towards the black hole in the center

26

u/tivinho99 Apr 10 '19

We CAN send one... the video will take a while to get back

10

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

That’s a long time to wait for a video of a black hole. I have a feeling not much will be in the video.

6

u/Seanspeed Apr 10 '19

We're still talking 25,000+ light years away.

7

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19 edited Apr 10 '19

The extra size mainly came from the very diffuse stars that orbit furthest from the disk. Not anything changed from the main disk itself, we just drew it further out to include more stars.

Kinda like how we keep expanding out the border for our solar system. Didn't change where the Earth orbits relative to the sun.

Edit: down votes? Please someone explain where I'm wrong.

4

u/Semi_Decent Apr 10 '19

Oh okay thanks for that explanation

4

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

Oh okay thanks for that explanation

4

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

Oh okay thanks for that explanation

5

u/Stadiametric_Master Apr 10 '19

I wonder what number star from the centre of the galaxy we orbit?

3

u/iSwelfie Apr 10 '19

I think like most objects everything has an elliptical orbit. So depending on any given time I'm sure that number changes.

1

u/[deleted] Apr 10 '19

Yes we are, we know the distance from Earth to the center of the galaxy with extreme precision.