Scientists Discover Bigger, Faster Milky Way

A study of the Milky Way using radio telescopes scattered across the US paints a new and dramatically different picture of our galaxy, reports Space.com. Our spiral-shaped galaxy is not only spinning faster than previously thought, it has 50% greater mass, with two hitherto unknown spiral arms where many new young stars are being formed.

A team from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics used a system of 10 radio-telescopes stretching from Hawaii to New England and the Caribbean known as the Very Long Baseline Array to reconfigure our map of the galaxy. In a separate development, NASA released a striking new image that is the sharpest infrared view ever taken of the Milky Way's core.
(More Milky Way stories.)