Putting things in Perspective - Mapping the Galaxy

[packman]

Using the National Science Foundation's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), a group of astronomers were able to, for the very first time, measure the distance between our Sun and a region of stars at the very end of our galaxy with accuracy. This is an essential step in creating a more accurate understanding of the structure of our home galaxy. Science Daily quoted Alberto Sanna, of the Max-Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy (MPIfR) in Germany, and one of the astronomers involved in this work.

https://public.nrao.edu/news/vlba-milky-way/

[CrispyQ]

1. Cool stuff.

The astronomers’ goal is to finally reveal what our own Galaxy looks like if we could leave it, travel outward perhaps a million light-years, and view it face-on, rather than along the plane of its disk. This task will require many more observations and much painstaking work, but, the scientists say, the tools for the job now are in hand. How long will it take?

“Within the next 10 years, we should have a fairly complete picture,” Mark Reid of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CFA) predicted.

[ThoughtCriminal]

2. You are here...

More:
https://thoughtcrimewave.blogspot.com/search/label/Galactic%20Orientation