The Swastika: Is it an Ancient Symbol of the Milky Way Galaxy?

In many parts of the western world, the Swastika has become associated with hatred and the horrors of the Nazi war crimes. But in the Hindu-Buddhist nations of Asia, the Swastika continues to be revered as a sacred and auspicious symbol denoting prosperity, well-being and good fortune – like it has been for thousands of years. It is hard for a tourist to Asia to miss the symbol. It adorns the entrances to houses and temples, serves as the emblem of schools and businesses, its carved on the idol of Buddha and Vishnu, appears on wedding cards, books, religious artifacts, jewellery, clothes etc. It’s even used as a name for Indian girls. Suffice it to say that the Swastika remains an integral part of the religious beliefs, rituals and customs of the Hindu-Buddhists.  

The term “Swastika” is comprised of two Sanskrit words: “Su” meaning “good, well”; and “asti” meaning “being”. Swastika, therefore, means good luck and well-being. In the late 19th century, Thomas Wilson wrote in the book, The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol and Its Migrations (1896), that, “what seems to have been at all times an attribute of the Swastika is its character as a charm or amulet, as a sign of benediction, blessing, long life, good fortune, good luck.”[1]

The geographic spread of this symbol, spanning time and immense distances, is truly stunning. Frankly, one would be hard pressed to find any other symbol that was so ubiquitous in the ancient world. If one were to ask you, what is common between a carved mammoth tusk dating from c.10,000 BCE found in Ukraine, pottery discovered near the town of Vratsa in Bulgaria from c.5000 BCE,  the Samarra bowl of the Near East dating to c. 4000 BCE,  seals of the Indus Valley civilization from c.2600 BCE, Greek coins of Corinth minted in c. 600 BCE or Roman-era mosaics – do not hesitate to blurt out the answer: they were all adorned with the Swatika symbol. The symbol was used extensively during the Bronze and Iron Ages by nearly all Indo-European cultures – the Anglo-Saxons, the Germanic tribes, the Celts, Gauls, Romans, Slavs, Iranians, Indians and others – as a decorative motif on floors, walls, temples, churches, pottery, weaponry, amulets etc. A border of linked swastikas called meandros was a common decorative motif in Greco-Roman architecture.

The Swastika, being a “pagan” symbol, came under attack with the spread of Christianity and Islam. But, even in the midst of this wave of invasions and intolerance, the Swastika managed to hold its own – so deeply was it ingrained in the collective consciousness. The Swastika can be seen on many medieval churches and on the effigies of Christian saints. The sultans of the Ottoman Empire used the Swastika motif in their mosques and caravanserai. The irony is that, even Jewish synagogues used to be adorned with Swastika motifs at one time. Steven Heller notes that, “ancient synagogues – Sussiya in North Africa, Eshtomoa and Ein-Gedi in Palestine – featured decorative Swastika mosaics from the mid-sixth century CE.”[2]

Of course, the symbol was known by different names in different cultures, even though the associated ideas are quite similar. There was a pervasive connection of the symbol with God, creation, peace and harmony. The Slavs knew it as Swarzyca - a magic sign manifesting the “power and majesty of the diety Svarog”. In Armenia, the Swastika symbolized divine light, eternity and rebirth. It was called Kerakhach meaning, “crooked cross”, and also Vardan which is proto-Armenian for “rotating”.[3] The Greeks called the symbol Gammadion, since each arm resembles the Greek letter gamma, and Tetraskelion (“four-legged”), the Celts used the term Fylfot (“four-footed”), while the Germans called it Hakenkreuz (“hooked cross”).

Many Native American tribes, most notably the Navajo, used the Swastika as part of their healing rituals and portrayed them on rugs and sand paintings. The Navajo refer to the Swastika as “Whirling Log” (tsil no'oli'). According to Edison Eskeets, a trader in the Navajo Nation, the whirling log represents all of life and is still used for healing in Navajo ceremonies. “It kind of has everything on it. It represents the constellation, the moon, the sun, the equinox… it’s the rotation of life,” he said.[4] Eskeets said that, as per the Navajo, the symbol rotates in both directions. 

The Swastika is an ancient symbol of the Kuna people of Panama. It is called Mola and “it symbolizes the octopus that created the universe; its four tentacles pointing to the four cardinal points”.[5] In Buddhism, the Swastika is associated associated with eternity, creation, peace and harmony. Tibetans call it g-yung drung, meaning eternal or unchanging. The Japanese Buddhists call the symbol manji (whirlwind), and the four arms represent whirling movement around the center. Evidently, a consistent set of meanings are associated with this ancient symbol of humanity: God and creation, eternity and rebirth, light and blessings, peace and harmony, healing and well-being, prosperity and good fortune, and perpetual rotation around a center.

The question is, how did a relatively simple symbol become associated with such a diverse array of ideas, many of them being quite profound? To connect any symbol with God, divine light or eternity is to take it a notch higher, and makes one wonder what the Swastika might truly represent. Some scholars have called it a "solar symbol", but the Swastika has rarely, if ever, been associated with the Sun. It has been been suggested that the four arms of the Swastika may represent the four cardinal directions, which does not make sense, since the arms of the Swastika are bent or curved, and not straight like a cross. Some have opined that the Swastika may be the stylized shape of a "wheel", which, in turn, would beg the question as to why the spokes of the wheel are bent, or why the rim of the wheel is absent? Besides, even if the Swastika was a “wheel in motion”, how would we explain the elevated ideas that came to be associated with it?

An interesting idea was proposed by Carl Sagan in his book Comet (1985). Sagan said that the Han-era (2nd century BCE) Chinese comet-atlas known as the Mawangdui Silk Text depicts a comet in the shape of a Swastika, having four bent arms emanating from the comet nucleus. The comet was described in the atlas as “Di Xing, the long-tailed pheasant bird”. Sagan had opined that the Swastika symbol may have originated from a comet which came close to the Earth, and whose tail appeared like a Swastika due to the comet’s rotation. 

It’s quite unlikely, though, that a comet’s tail will appear to spiral out from the center, since the tails of a comet are pushed back by solar wind when it approaches the Sun. The Swastika symbol was, in all probablity, “given” to this comet by the ancients, since it brought good fortune and prosperity. I had proposed in an earlier article that the comet described in the Mawangdui Silk Texts as the “long-tailed pheasant bird” was known as the Phoenix by the Greeks and the Benu Bird by the Egyptians, and this colourful, many-tailed, comet was responsible for the Shift of the Ages at the end of a World Age. As such, it's return was eagerly awaited by the "Watchers", for it was the harbinger of good tidings. 

So, what does the Swastika really represent? What is it out there that can explain not only the spiral form of the Swastika but also its myriad connotations? The question had been on my mind for a long time, and one of the first indications of the true import of the symbol came to me from the writings of the Maya Elder and Daykeeper, Hunbatz Men.

Hunbatz Men is an indigenous Maya who lives in Merida, Mexico. As a Maya Daykeeper, he keeps track of the Mayan calendars, performs indigenous rituals, and propagates the sacred teachings of the Maya. As such, his thoughts on Maya symbolisms are quite different from that of mainstream Mesoamerican scholars. In 1986, Hunbatz Men published a book titled Secrets of Mayan Science/Religion, in which said that the spiral symbol that is found all over Mesoamerica – particularly in northwestern Yucatan at places such as Uxmal and Chichten Itza - carved on the walls of the temples and pyramids, represents the Milky Way galaxy. He calls this spiral the symbol “G”. According to him, “the “G” is symbolic of the beginning, the germination, the Egg-Creator, the essence, the seed from which all life - human or otherwise - springs”[6], and all over Mesoamerica, the “Mexicas, as well as the Maya, worshipped the Milky Way, as represented by the symbolic “G””.[7]

The “G” symbol, according to Hunbatz Men also represented Hunab K’u, the Absolute Being. In the 16th century Diccionario de Motul, Hunab Ku is identified as “the only living and true god, also the greatest of the gods of the people of Yucatan.” Hunbatz Men wrote that the entire cosmos vibrates with the essence of Hunab K’u, and human beings are a projection as well as a reflection of this great cosmic consciousness.[8]

Hunbatz Men’s identification of the spiral “G” symbol with the Milky Way and Hunab K’u is quite radical, for it imples that the ancients were not only aware of the spiral shape of our galaxy but they even knew that it is the source of all life, stars and planets in our island-universe. But somewhere along the line, this ancient wisdom was lost, and it was only in the early 20th century that astronomers began to realize that we live in a spiral-shaped galaxy. 

Till the 1920s, it was widely believed that the universe consisted of just the Milky Way galaxy, and the spiral-shaped cloudy “nebulae” which appeared in telescopes were “gas clouds” located within the Milky Way which gave birth to stars. In 1919, the American astronomer Edwin Hubble looked at the nebula in Andromeda, using the Hooker telescope on top of Mount Wilson in California, and realized that the Andromeda is a collection of stars, at least 10 times farther away than the farthest stars in the Milky Way. In other words, the Andromeda was a galaxy just like ours! He performed the same experiment on other spiral nebulae, and realized they were also galaxies, located even farther away. Our view of the universe changed dramatically. Astronomers no longer thought our galaxy was the entire universe. The universe was composed of millions of galaxies, each of which was an “island universe” in its own right. Astronomers also began to suspect that the Milky Way is a spiral-shaped galaxy just like the others.

If Hunbatz Men’s interpretation of the “G” symbol is correct, it would mean that the spiral shape of our galaxy was known for a long time, and then forgotten. Of course, it wasn’t just the Maya who venerated the spiral symbol. Simple spirals are found at architectural sites all over the world – in Ireland, Britain, Malta, Peru, North America, India, Greece etc. While we don’t have much information on what these spirals signified to the people who made them, we do know how the Maori viewed their spiral symbols, which they used extensively in their artwork found all over New Zealand. 

The Maori used both the single spiral as well as the double spiral. The single spiral is called a koru. The Maori believe that the circular shape of the koru conveys the idea of “perpetual motion”, while the inner coil symbolizes a “return to the center, the point of origin”.[9] Anthropologist David Simmons writes that in certain Maori tribal groups, spirals “represent the manawa ora (soul of life).They signify light coming into the world; which is also knowledge or understanding.”[10]

Clearly, the Maori beliefs about the single spiral (koru), coincides with Hunbatz Men’s interpretation of the spiral "G" symbol. They both represent the origin of life and creation, of life, light and wisdom coming into the world. This suggests that the Maori spiral – and indeed all the simple spirals found across the world – could be symbolic of the Milky Way galaxy!

But what about the double spiral? Do they have a similar connotation? Is there any textual evidence that the ancients viewed double-spirals like the Swastika in a similar manner?

During my conversations with Buddhist practitioners and monks, I learnt that many of them believed that the Swastika represents the Milky Way galaxy, even though this association is not explicitly mentioned in any Buddhist sutra. While trying to look for textual sources, I came across the official statements of Falun Dafa, a spiritual discipline based on Buddhism that was first introduced in China in 1992, through the public lectures delivered by its founder, Li Hongzhi. The Falun Dafa emblem consists of a large Swastika (left-pointed) inscribed at the center of a concentric pair of circles. Each of the eight cardinal and intercardinal cardinal directions are marked by four smaller Swastikas and four Taijis i.e. yin-yang symbols. According to Li Hongzhi, the Swastika in their emblem depicts the Milky Way galaxy: 

“This universe, of course, consists of numerous galaxies including our Milky Way galaxy. The whole universe is in motion, and so are all the galaxies within it. Therefore, the Taiji and the small swastikas "" in the configuration as well as the whole Falun are also rotating, including the large swastika "" in the center. In a way, the configuration symbolizes our Milky Way galaxy. Because we belong to the Buddha School, the center retains the symbol of the Buddha School.”[11]

So we have two different spiritual leaders – Hunbatz Men and Li Hongzhi – associating the spiral symbols of ancient art with the Milky Way galaxy. This is far from being a coincidence, and hints at a layer of lost, ancient, cosmic wisdom that was once known to people across the world. I began to wonder, how does our modern scientific understanding of the Milky Way galaxy stack up with what we know about the Swastika from the traditions of different cultures? As I went down this route of exploration, many fascinating correlations began to pop up.

A Swastika, as we have seen so far, has four arms, each of which may be straight and bent at right angles, or may be gradually curved like a spiral. One of my first thoughts was to find out if the Milky Way also has four spiral arms, just like the Swastika. For a long time, astronomers were unsure about the exact number of spiral arms in our galaxy. While some had argued for two spiral arms, others believed there are four. The latest scientific findings, however, indicate that the Milky Way galaxy has four spiral arms.

In 2009, a team of international scientists confirmed the presence of two main spiral arms and two weaker arms in the inner galaxy, indicating that our galaxy is symmetrical in shape. The discovery was made using information from NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer satellite, which maps the Milky Way in infrared light. As per the article in ScienceDaily,

“A research team has developed the first complete map of the Milky Way galaxy's spiral arms. The map shows two prominent, symmetric spiral arms in the inner part of the galaxy. The arms extend into the outer galaxy where they branch into four spiral arms…In addition to the two main spiral arms in the inner galaxy, two weaker arms exist. These arms end about 10,000 light-years from the galaxy's center. (The sun is located about 25,000 light-years from the galactic center.)…Finally it is clear that our model assumption of symmetry was correct and the inner galaxy is indeed quite symmetric in structure.”[12]

In 2013, a 12-year study of massive stars reaffirmed that the Milky Way galaxy has four spiral arms. The paper was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, and was part of the RMS Survey launched by academics at the University of Leeds. The astronomers in the study used several radio telescopes in Australia, USA and China to individually observe about 1650 massive stars that had been identified by the RMS Survey. From their observations, the distances and luminosities of the massive stars were calculated, revealing a distribution across four spiral arms. Professor Hoare said, “Star formation researchers, like me, grew up with the idea that our Galaxy has four spiral arms. It’s great that we have been able to reaffirm that picture.”[13]

Thus, the Swastika and the Milky Way both have four spiral arms – a correlation that is hard to ignore. It immediately tells us that this ancient symbol could be encoding critical cosmic wisdom that is only now becoming apparent to us.

At the center of the Milky Way galaxy there is a dense, spherical, bulge of stars called the “central bulge”, “nuclear bulge” or “galactic bulge”, which contains the nucleus. The brilliant nuclear bulge has a diameter of around 12,000 light years, and is composed of very old, red stars. The nuclear bulge gives rise to the four spiral arms, which are the primary regions of star forming activity in the galaxy. Apart from the nuclear bulge, another extraordinary structure has been identified in the central region of our galaxy – a gigantic, spindle-shaped structure called the “central bar”. It is nearly 27,000 light-years long and extends across the centre of the Milky Way.[14] The central bar was discovered in 2005, using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. It is composed of roughly 30 million stars – making it the biggest constellation of stars in our galaxy.

Intriguingly, both the nuclear bulge and the central bar of the Milky Way are encoded in various Swastika designs. Swastikas from many places – Persia, France, Britain, Rome, North America, Ireland, China etc. – depict the arms coming out of a small circle or a spherical, knob-like structure in the center, which could symbolize the spherical nuclear bulge of the Milky Way.

I have already discussed about the Maori single spiral called koru. The Maori also used an impressive number of double spirals, some of which bear a striking resemblance to the Swastika. This has not escaped the attention of anthropologists. W.J.Phillipps noted that some of the Maori double spirals “have four ridges running outward in Swastika fashion from a central point.” The antiquarian Edward Tregear said that, apart from the clearly evident visual similarities, the extensive decorative use of the Maori double spirals on door lintels and war canoes have strong connections to the usage of the Swastika in the east. [15]

The Maori double spirals had many variations. A carver named Anaha Ta Rahui had identified 5 different types of double spirals, of which 3 spiral shapes are particularly intriguing for our analysis. The spiral design named takarangi has spiral ridges emerging from a “circular centre”, which resembles the spiral arms of the Milky Way emanating from the nuclear bulge. A couple of double spiral designs called rauru and the maui have spiral ridges coming out of an “elliptical centre”,[16] which makes them look exactly like the spiral arms of the Milky Way emerging from the spindle-shaped central bar! The similarity is absolutely astonishing, and there is really nothing else in nature which corresponds to such pieces of art, except our galaxy.

While it is incredible enough to think that our ancestors knew that our galaxy had four spiral arms which came out of a spherical nuclear bulge or a spindle-shaped central bar, more surprises were in store me for me as I continued to explore the Swastika symbolism.

Some variations of the Swastika used in Rodnovery, which is a Slavic native faith, and also found in Armenia, Poland, Latvia and some Slavic nations, show each of the four spiral arms of the Swastika branching out into two arms. As a result, the four arms of the Swastika branch out to form a total of eight arms. These variations seem puzzling and arbitrary, but are easily explainable once we realize that the Swatika depicts the spiral arms of the Milky Way. Even in our galaxy, the two major spiral arms branch into four spiral arms in the outer galaxy. Scientists are not sure if the two weaker spiral arms of our galaxy exhibit any branching or not. Nevertheless, the fact that such specific details about the morphology of the spiral arms appear to have been encoded in this ancient, globally dispersed symbol, speaks volumes about the cosmic awareness of our prehistoric ancestors.

We have seen that the arms of the Swastika are either shown curving outwards from the center in the form of a spiral or are depicted as straight lines which are bent at right angles. We might think that, perhaps, this was simply a stylistic variation, and not something that has any cosmic significance. Think again!

In 2010, a team of astronomers from from Brazil discovered that the spiral arms of the Milky Way are straight in some places, thereby giving the Milky Way a square appearance, instead of circular.[17] A report published in Universe Today goes like this:

“Most of us have this vision of a circular, spiral galaxy with gracefully curving spiral arms. Nope, says a group of astronomers from Brazil. The Milky Way might be square. Not like a box, but, in places, the spiral arms are straight rather than curved, giving the Milky Way a distinctly square look. And our solar system sits right on one the straightest parts of an outer arm…However, the concept of our galaxy having square-ish arms is not so far fetched: we know of the Pinwheel Galaxy, above, that has areas of straight and squared off arms.”

Once again, it seems quite incredible that even this minute detail – of the spiral arms of the Milky Way being straight and squared off in some places – could have been incorporated in the design of the Swastika, as well as in the spiral “G” symbol found in abundance in Maya art! This is probably where we start thinking, “how is that even possible,” and I agree that things are getting mighty surreal here! And yet, as we all know, truth can be stranger than fiction.

Finally, let us investigate the rotation of the Swastika around its center. As we have noted, multiple cultures believed that the Swastika is in perpetual motion around its center, which is reflected in the names used for the Swastika. The Armenians call it Vardan which is proto-Armenian for “rotating”, the Navajo referred to it as the “Whirling Log” (tsil no'oli'), while the Japanese term for the symbol was Manji (whirlwind). We had also noted that the Swastikas come in two forms: the left-turned Swastika and the right-turned Swastika. Both forms of the Swastika are found in abundance. 

It is well known that the spiral arms of our galaxy rotate around the central bulge at a breakneck speed of around 210 km / sec in the neighbourhood of our Sun. Most spiral galaxies rotate such that their arms trail the direction of rotation. Thus, viewed from above i.e. the north galactic pole, the Milk Way galaxy rotates in a clockwise direction with its spiral arms trailing behind i.e. pointing away from the direction of rotation. In essence, when viewed from above, the Milky Way resembles a left-turned Swastika rotating in a clockwise direction. 

Conversely, when viewed from the south galactic pole i.e. from below the galactic disk, the Milky Way looks like a right-turned Swastika, rotating in an anti-clockwise direction. The left-turned and right-turned Swastikas appear to represent two different perspectives of the Milky Way galaxy, one from above i.e. the north galactic pole and the other from below i.e. the south galactic pole. There is no indication, from the extant textual sources or archaeological remains, that the ancients looked at the left-turned and right-turned Swastika any differently, although, different cultures seemed to have preferred one form of the Swastika over the other.

The correlations between the morphology of the Milky Way galaxy and the portrayals of the Swastika symbol amongst different cultures is nothing short of astounding, and challenges everything that we assume to know about the wisdom and cosmic awareness of our prehistoric ancestors. Let me sum up some of the key morphological similarities between the Swastika and the Milky Way:

1) The Swastika typically has four arms, which are either curved, or are straight and bent at right angles. The Milky Way galaxy also has four spiral arms.
2) The arms of the Swastika are sometimes shown emerging from a central circle, spherical knob, or a spindle-shaped structure. The spiral arms of the Milky Way emanate from the spherical nuclear bulge and the spindle-shaped central bar.
3) The spiral arms of the Swastika, in some cases, are shown branching out to form multiple arms. The two major spiral arms of the Milky Way branch out to form four spiral arms in the outer galaxy.
4) Recent studies indicate that in some places, the spiral arms of the Milky Way are straight and squared off, giving our galaxy a distinctly square look. This explains why in many depictions of the Swastika the arms are straight and bent at right angles.
5) The Swastika is believed to rotate around its center and comes in two forms : the left-turned and the right-turned Swastika. The Milky Way also rotates around the center, and looks like a left-turned Swastika when viewed from above and a right-turned Swasika when viewed from below.

These are just the physical correlations. When we delve into the esoteric and mystical significance of the Swastika, we find that they are in consonance with this identification. The Swastika is believed to be the source of life and creation, and the spiral arms of our galaxy give birth to the stars, constellations and solar systems, thereby acting as the source of creation and life. The nuclear bulge and the billions of stars in our galaxy spread light and consciousness, and provide a stable, unchanging and harmonious foundation for the growth and evolution of life. All of these ideas are intrinsically associated with the Swastika as well.

It is no surprise, therefore, that the symbol of the Milky Way was venerated by ancient cultures across the globe, and etched on their most sacred and precious artifacts; for not one of us would be here if it were not for our galaxy. The Swastika symbol breaches the chasms of time and space and stands as a mute testimony to the incredible cosmic awareness of our ancestors. What is amazing, though, is the level of intricate details about the morphology of the Milky Way which has been encoded into this symbol. This is the kind of knowledge that mainstream academics and scientists do not generally ascribe to the ancient cultures, since the dominant paradigm today is that humans have progressed in a linear fashion from the state of cavemen to the modern day civilization. However, most ancient cultures believed in a cyclical view of civilization, in which Golden Ages of enlightenment and prosperity alternated with Dark Ages of ignorance and strife. If the cyclical view of history is correct, then the galactic knowledge encoded into the Swastika symbol is not incongruous at all, but only to be expected.   

References

[1] Thomas Wilson, The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol and Its Migrations (1896), 10.
[2] Steven Heller, Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? (Skyhorse Publishing Inc, 2010).
[3] "The History of the Kerakhach, the Armenian Swastika", September 23, 2017, https://allinnet.info/interesting/the-history-of-the-kerakhach-the-armenian-swastika/
[4] Hayley Sanchez, "Those are sacred Navajo Symbols, Not Swastikas, On That Pueblo Art Collector’s Rug", CPR News, Aug 15, 2018, https://www.cpr.org/2018/08/15/those-are-sacred-navajo-symbols-not-swastikas-on-that-pueblo-art-collectors-rug/
[5] “Mola”, Smithsonian Institution, https://collections.si.edu/search/detail/edanmdm:nmnhanthropology_8453064
[6] Hunbatz Men, Secrets of Mayan Science/Religion (Inner Traditions / Bear & Co, 1990) 31.
[7] Ibid 40.
[8] Ibid 26.
[9] “Maori creation traditions”, Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, New Zealand Ministry for Culture and Heritage / Te Manat? Taonga <http://www.teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/2422/the-koru>
[10] David Simmons, Whakairo: Maori Tribal Art (Auckland: Oxford University Press, 1986) 45.
[11] Li Hongzhi, Zhuan Falun, Lecture Five: Configuration of Falun <http://falundafa.org/book/eng/zfl_01.htm>
[12] Iowa State University, "Astrophysicists Map Milky Way's Four Spiral Arms", ScienceDaily  9 Jan. 2009 <http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090105090844.htm>
[13] "Massive stars mark out Milky Way's 'missing' arms", University of Leeds, Science News, Dec 17 2013, https://www.leeds.ac.uk/news/article/3470/massive_stars_mark_out_milky_ways_missing_arms
[14] Terry Devitt, “Galactic survey reveals a new look for the Milky Way”, University of Wisconsin-Madison News 16 Aug. 2005 <http://www.news.wisc.edu/11405>
[15] Thomas Wilson, The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol and Its Migrations (1896) 12.
[16] Te Rangi Hiroa, Sir Peter Buck, The Coming of the Maori (Wellington: Whitcombe and Tombs Ltd, 1952) 315.
[17] Nancy Atkinson, “The Milky Way Might Be Square”, Universe Today 14 Oct. 2010 <http://www.universetoday.com/75770/the-milky-way-might-be-square/#ixzz25UYjXiNt>