Simulations suggest our Galaxy is surprisingly massive
The Milky Way is one in a million, according to a recent set of simulations. Our Galaxy is part of the Local Sheet, a cosmological wall of galaxies on the edge of a large void. New simulations from the IllustrisTNG Project have shown that elsewhere in the Universe, galaxies in these walls tend to be smaller than the Milky Way. In fact, only one in every million is as large as our own.
“What we newly found is that other walls of galaxies in the Universe like the Local Sheet very seldom seem to have a galaxy inside them that’s as massive as the Milky Way,” says Joe Silk from Sorbonne University’s Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, who took part in the study. “[But] if you could see the nearest dozen or so large galaxies easily in the sky, you would see that they all nearly lie on a ring, embedded in the Local Sheet. That’s a little bit special in itself.” www.tng-project.org