How Big Is A Galaxy? Milky Way Shown To Scale

But don't you wish you lived in "The Tadpole"?

By Francie Diep Posted 04.04.2013 at 8:59 am 5 Comments

Part of the galaxy size comparison chart

Small And Large The M100 galaxy, which is about 60 percent larger than the Milky Way, next to the M97 galaxy. From "Galaxy Size Comparison Chart" by Rhys Taylor

Think the Milky Way is big? It's puny compared to M87, an elliptical galaxy 980,000 light years in diameter. The Milky Way is only 100,000 light years in diameter. Let's not even get into Hercules A, which is 1.5 million light years across.

Astronomer and artist Rhys Taylor has made such comparisons easier and much more fun with his new infographics ("which is what I gather is now the cool term for 'posters,'" he writes) comparing the sizes of different galaxies.

The graphics are well worth exploring. They show the diversity in sizes and shapes of galaxies and offer interesting facts, like that some galaxies emit jets, powered by black holes in their centers. See them in their full glory at Taylor's website.

Previous Article: BigPic: What Does This Photo, Taken From The ISS, Show?

Next Article: Today On Mars: Watch Curiosity's Parachute Flap Around In The Wind

5 Comments

Link to this comment

AnyIcon

04/04/13 at 11:15 am

"...Big things have small beginnings..." ~ Prometheus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB52xyaY4kk

Link to this comment

ToomeyND

04/04/13 at 11:23 am

Thanks for posting this, popsci. Those are pretty neat to look at.

Link to this comment

yoyoyepi6

04/04/13 at 12:44 pm

the galaxy's great, I always wanted to know more about the sky and our galaxy. Site Yepi6 org | Yepi8 org | Kizi-2 net

Link to this comment

Onihikage

04/04/13 at 4:51 pm

Whenever I want to FEEL the tremendous scale of the universe, I just open up Space Engine and roam it myself. My mind STILL gets blown every time.

For those who don't know, Space Engine is a really cool free program that puts an explorable universe (planets, moons, asteroids, stars, solar systems, galaxies, clusters, black holes, nebulas, and probably a few other things) at your fingertips. It even shows you how fast you're going at any given point, whether in meters, c, AU, or parsecs per second. I hope y'all don't consider this spam since it's actually pretty relevant to the article: www.spaceengine.org

Link to this comment

tweiupodsif

04/04/13 at 10:35 pm

Hi buddy :

Updated daily shoes :

in order to thank everyone, characteristic, novel style, varieties, low price and good quality, and the low sale price Thank everyone

http://al.ly/3pN

sdfwegwegew

Popular Tags

Science

All Tags All Photos All Videos

Science

+ More Photo Galleries

140 years of Popular Science at your fingertips.

Popular Science+ For iPad

Each issue has been completely reimagined for your iPad. See our amazing new vision for magazines that goes far beyond the printed page

Download Our App

Stay up to date on the latest news of the future of science and technology from your iPhone or Android phone with full articles, images and offline viewing

Follow Us On Twitter

Featuring every article from the magazine and website, plus links from around the Web. Also see our PopSci DIY feed

April 2013: How It Works

For our annual How It Works issue, we break down everything from the massive Falcon Heavy rocket to a tiny DNA sequencer that connects to a USB port. We also take a look at an ambitious plan for faster-than-light travel and dive into the billion-dollar science of dog food.

Plus the latest Legos, Cadillac's plug-in hybrid, a tractor built for the apocalypse, and more.