Stumbled upon this while "inching" the Web
From Space.com
Tue May 27, 4:32 PM ET
The Milky Way galaxy weighs about 1 trillion times as much as our sun, according to a new estimate.
Previous estimates had ranged from 750 billion solar masses to up to 2 trillion. Lately, researchers have been leaning toward the higher figure. But now astronomers have used a more refined method to conclude that our galaxy's mass is slightly less than 1 trillion solar masses.
The galaxy's mass is a mix of stars, gas, dust and mysterious dark matter.
The new estimate is based on a large sample of stars in the galactic halo, a relatively sparse sphere of stars that surrounds our galaxy's main disk. The speeds of stars in the halo reveal the mass of the galaxy by allowing astrophysicists to infer the amount of gravity required to keep those stars in orbit.
These guys must be good to arrive at tremendous figures!
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