The new study finds an inner halo (orange area) that is more flattened and dominates the population of stars up to 50,000 light years from the Milky Way's center. The outer halo (blue) is more spherical, and dominates the population beyond 65,000 light years from the galactic center. It may extend out to more than 300,000 light years. The red plus symbols represent stars and the brown burst-like symbols are star clusters. CREDIT: SDSS-II, Masashi Chiba, Tohoku University, Japan
