In the style of many others who have used the subway map concept to understand a certain subject, I now present the Milky Way Transit Authority, a map of our own galaxy in the style of a subway map. I need lots of feedback so please be unstinting in your criticism.
Just discovered the MWTA map via io9.com – very cool! A few questions – it looks like there are 3 stations in the Galactic Center interchange, one named Galactic Center, one named Sag A, and one unnamed. Is that deliberate? Also, what does the grey Canis Major zone signify?
Glad you liked it! In terms of the Galactic Center, Galactic Center was designed to refer to the whole bundle of stations, and Sag A (the large black hole in the center of the galaxy) was just included because it added a bit of actual astronomy info. The unnamed stations are simply there to allow everything to fit.
And Canis Major is one of the closest satellite galaxies to the Milky Way, and was included to give a bit of topography to the map.
Love the map, needs a “You are here” arrow perhaps. If you change it so it has one please tell me as I’d like to print it out again.
Thanks for the suggestion. But then again, you wouldn’t want the map to be too Earth/Sol-centric now, would you? I made this with all galactic citizens in mind
Thanks for the clarification. If you do redraw it for some other reason, it might make sense to switch “Galactic Center” to the light italic you used for Canis Major. At any rate, the map is beautiful – I’ve got it hanging up above my monitor now.