The Milky Way is ‘less weird’ than we thought

Our Galaxy’s core isn't as densely packed with stars as previously estimated, meaning that the Milky Way is similar to other spiral galaxies with around the same mass. Measuring the Galaxy’s size and shape is tricky — it’s like working out how big a city is while standing on a street corner. Instead of extrapolating from the distribution of stars in our immediate galactic surroundings, scientists measured the locations and distances of almost a quarter of a million massive red giants. These old stars are good markers of visible matter in the Galaxy, and their near-infrared light can pass through the interstellar dust that obscures other wavelengths.