The Milky Way: A Tourist's Guide What a difference a couple of
years make. Buzz Lightyear has given up on the whole "infinity
and beyond" thing, instead focusing on his own backyard.
(Actually, the front yard of his owner, Andy, and the toys that
get stolen therefrom.) In the same time frame, astronomers have
undergone a similar transition of thinking. Once looking far off
into the deep black in search of answers to black holes, the big
thinkers of space have returned, if not to Earth, at least to
the cosmic backyard, solidifying the theory that there's a big
ol' gravity monster just 26,000 light-years away, in the very
center of our home galaxy. (One light-year is equal to 5.88
trillion miles, or 9.46 trillion kilometers.) The revelation has
researchers scrambling to study what is by far the closest black
hole around. It also raises a simple question: What do we really
know about our own galaxy? In seven separate articles in the
January 7 issue of the journal Science, all of this new thinking
is discussed. A