Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!umcp-cs!mangoe
From: mangoe@umcp-cs.UUCP (Charley Wingate)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Size of the Galaxy
Message-ID: <154@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 7-Mar-86 22:52:35 EST
Article-I.D.: umcp-cs.154
Posted: Fri Mar  7 22:52:35 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Mar-86 08:34:32 EST
Organization: U of Maryland, Computer Science Dept., College Park, MD
Lines: 12

>    As an aside, it is interesting to note that in the early part of this
>    century, an incorrect accounting for interstellar absorption caused many
>    astronomers to believe our galaxy was a small elliptical one, rather
>    than the large spiral it really is.

>  Actually, I think it was the other way around.  For a while it was
>thought that this galaxy was unusually large.

If memory serves me, current numbers list Milky Way as one of the biggest
single galaxies we know of.  Is there an astronomer in the house?

C. Wingate