Milky weigh: our galaxy has the mass of 700bn suns, say scientists
by Tim Radford from on (#1FNM2)
Most accurate measurement so far has estimated the collective mass of the Milky Way's stars, black holes, dust, dark matter - and unidentified flying objects
Our galaxy has a collective mass 700 billion times that of the sun, according to the most accurate measurement yet by scientists.
The estimate covers the mass of all the stars, black holes, gas clouds, dust, dark matter and other unidentified flying objects in the Milky Way. The previous rough ballpark figure was around a trillion solar masses - the standard measure for big astronomical objects.
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