Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT

Measuring the Milky Way’s mind-boggling mass

A combination of telescope data and 87,000 simulated galaxies helps scientists to size up the Galaxy.
A view of the central parts of the Milky Way, as seen from Earth

Simulations suggest that the Milky Way, seen here as a diagonal dark cloud, has a mass of at least 670 billion times the Sun. Credit:ESO/S. Guisard

Astronomers are closing in on a precise estimate for the mass of the Milky Way.

Access options

Buy article

Get time limited or full article access on ReadCube.

$32.00

Buy

All prices are NET prices.

Nature 557, 9 (2018)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-018-04970-z

References

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links