Subway Map of the Milky Way Galaxy

In the Milky Way Transit Authority, Samuel Arbesman has taken the subway map infographic style and applied it to the Milky Way, using stars and nebula as the station points.  The lines do correlate to the spiral arms of the galaxy.

Each line on the map corresponds to an arm of the galaxy, and the ‘stations’ are places in their actual locations, albeit stars, nebula and other astronomical objects.  The inspiration for the schematic representation came after he re-read Carl Sagan’s novel ‘Contact’, which alludes to a cosmic Grand Central Station.  The idea drew him to analyse the first modern subway map, London’s Tube map, which was designed by Harry Beck.

Found on digg.com

Comments

[Steve D]

Color me skeptical. There's a stop named "Centaurus" on one side of the center (as seen from sol), and another for Omicron Centauri. That would imply that Sagittarius (which is where the center of the galaxy appears to be from our point of view) is in the center of Centaurus, which isn't so.

I did not realize the Orion and Eagle nebulae were that far away, but of course now I don't trust the graphic.

[Steve D]

.... on the other hand "Centaurus" might be the name of the spiral arm--in which case naming the station something like "Centaurus Arm Central" would make it clearer.

[Richard]

Im lost wheres the you are here arrow???