How wide is the Milky Way?

The Milky Way is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km (about 100,000 light years or about 30 kpc) across. The Sun does not lie near the center of our Galaxy. It lies about 8 kpc from the center on what is known as the Sagittarius arm of the Milky Way.

More Info: imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov

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21 Comments

Jaimi McEntire

I had to remember the words to the second verse of Monty Python's galaxy song to get this: Our galaxy itself contains a hundred billion stars. It's a hundred thousand light years side to side It bulges in the middle, sixteen thousand light years thick But out by us, it's just three thousand light years wide

Jeff Carter

The one I bought yesterday was only about an inch wide... 🙂

Trevor Williams

I thought it was 105,700 Light Years

Nicholas Miernicki

Rae Ann Randall, I knew the answer and I was tax accountant.

Louella Wilson

How long is it? And how thick?

Denise Currie

Just went for top answer

Wendy Petty

Accuracy please. How can we guess these if there is debate over the answer.

Rockin' D (See Tagged Profile for Images photos)

That's a lot of Stardust to Vacuum!!! ......and Meteor Debris to gather! How do you keep it clean???? [I got it wrong , I was scrolling down, to align the question and Touched an answer line in error! OUCH MY FAULT!!!] Fun question!!

Michael Baggott

That’s pretty big..!!

ChiefRaven

The latest and supposedly more accurate measure is between 120,000 and 180,000 light years across, nearly twice the previous estimate of 100,000 light years.