Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 1979. 17: 135-87 Copyright © 1979 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved

2. THE MILKY WAY

Because of the sun's location in the central plane of the galactic disk, the large-scale structure and global mass of the Milky Way are more difficult to determine than those of a nearby external galaxy. However, our position within our own galaxy gives us a bird's eye view of the mass in the solar neighborhood plus a chance to study the dynamics and mass distributions of various subpopulations in the Milky Way.