How massive is the Milky Way? It's an easy question to ask, but a difficult one to answer.
Imagine a single cell in your body trying to determine your total mass, and you get an idea of how difficult it can be.
We've measured the rotation curves for several nearby galaxies such as Andromeda, so we know the masses of many galaxies quite accurately. We've also looked at the motions of the globular clusters that orbit in the halo of the Milky Way. From these observations, our best estimate of the mass of the Milky Way is about a trillion solar masses, give or take.
While this is only a fraction of the estimated 100-400 billion stars in our galaxy, it is a large enough number to calculate an accurate rotation curve. Which is exactly what the team did.
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