A postdoctural fellow at Harvard has come up with a fascinating vision of the Milky Way -- he's turned it into a map not unlike the DC Metro or the London Underground. Kinda neat.
That's so cool. The next time I'm exploring the galaxy I'll pack it along with my Hitchhiker's Guide and towel.
Not sure I understand it. Basically the shape of this map is of the barred spiral galaxy that makes up the Milky Way galaxy, with corresponding spiral arms. But I don't get why omicron 2 centauri is where it is, or how distances are plotted.
Not a bad idea actually, because if you look closely at the map you'll clearly notice Earth will have to be demolished to make way for a hyper-spacial sub-way bypass... I think I'll grab my Sub-Etha Sense-O-Matic Thumb and join you...
Neat stuff! But think of the financial hit on my Oyster card... And is the Crab Nebula station closed on Sundays? And should Seven Sisters station be renamed Pleiades? Personally I'm making a cross-universe connection to M87 Temple Meads from Mornington Cygnus ("mind the gap"... and when I say "gap", I mean "Cygnus X-1") next week - it's a sleeper service, calling at Intergalactic Expanse Lime Street, Deep Space Charing Cross, and Intergalactic Expanse Waverley. Is there any industrial action or problems with neutrinos on the line?
I’m going to print it on a sheet of sticker paper and put it up a Minneapolis Light Rail hub just for fun.
That's the thing about a schematic-style map. It's less about representing true geography, and more about relative geography, which makes it more usable for transit riders.
Considering that it would take about 30,000years to get to just the nearest star, all I can say it "hope they didn't spend any taxpayer money on that."