How Big Is the Milky Way?

The Milky Way is Earth’s home galaxy, the stellar city in which we reside. It’s hefty, containing a few hundred billion stars. And it’s so spacious that, even traveling at the speed of light, it would take more than 100,000 years to get from one side to the other. (It’s Frisbee shaped, though; so, from top to bottom, you could drive through on a shorter, thousand-light-year jaunt.)