Expert: Ed - 9/11/2009

Question
  I read that if the solar system were a quarter the Milky Way would be North America.(awesome) What if the M W were a quarter? How far would it be to the farthest known galaxy? Also is the distribution of the many galaxies flat like a pancake or spherical? Thank you.

Answer
Monty, our galaxy is about 100,000 light years in dialmeter.  The most remote known galaxy is about 13,000,000,000 light years away.  So, if you pretended that our galaxy was the size of a quarter, the most remote galaxy would be about 130,000 quarters away.  I'm not sure how wide a quarter is, exactly....  I would guesstimate that 130,000 times the diameter of a quarter would be about.... hmmmmmmm maybe a mile and a half, or two miles.  Measure a quarter, you can do the math.

The galaxies are distributed in more of a spherical shape than a flat pancakey shape.

Keep Looking Up,
-Ed