By Ron Cowen
LONG BEACH, Calif. — Hey Andromeda, you’d better watch out. Turns out your little brother, the Milky Way galaxy, isn’t so little after all. In fact, the Milky Way is just as massive, weighing in at the new estimate of 3 trillion suns, according to a new study.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/9462.jpg?resize=300%2C263&ssl=1)
That means that the two galaxies — the largest members of the Local Group of galaxies — might smash into each other earlier than astronomers had predicted.
To map the Milky Way, the new study uses the Very Long Baseline Array of 10 radio telescopes stretched out over thousands of miles. Unlike visible-light observations, which are obscured by interstellar dust, radio studies enable astronomers to penetrate through dusty byways.