The words one of my grad school professors uttered one day amid a course on the structure of the Milky Way still echo in my mind: “What a wonder that we dwell in a galaxy in which we can see all its wonders!” Today, even more than back then, astronomers appreciate how superbly designed our galaxy is to permit the discovery of its multiple fine-tuned features, characteristics that make possible not only human existence but also our global high-tech civilization.
