Milky Way's True Colors Revealed

(EndPlay Staff Reports) - It turns out the Milky Way is really milky in color, resembling fresh snow.

University of Pittsburgh astronomers said their finding is significant because we are located in the middle of the Milky Way, which had previously made it difficult to accurately determine the color of the galaxy.

"The problem is similar to determining the overall color of the Earth, when you're only able to tell what Pennsylvania looks like," Jeffrey Newman, a professor of physics and astronomy, said in a statement .

Newman and Timothy Licquia, a Ph.D. student in physics, were able to get around this hindrance by using images that were taken from other, more distant galaxies we can view more clearly. They observed the galaxies using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, which measured the detailed properties of nearly a million galaxies.

The light from the Milky Way closely matches the color of a standard incandescent light bulb, which the human eye would perceive as white, according to Discovery News .

"The Milky Way ended up being very bright for a red galaxy, but for all galaxies overall, it seems to be a little less luminous than we think it would be," Licquia told Discovery News. "We're not sure why."

Their findings also revealed that the Milky Way's core has red coloring and sky-blue spiral arms. Because the Milky Way is among the reddest of spiral galaxies, the researchers said that means its days of forming stars are nearing an end.

"It's entering its retirement when it won't make anything new," Newman said. Also, based on the type and number of stars the Milky Way is a typical galaxy.

The research was unveiled Wednesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas.