Our Milky Way galaxy's spiral disk is about 100,000 light-years wide, but star formation doesn't occur across that entire span. (Image credit: A. Ghizzi Panizza/ESO)

Astronomers have found the boundary of star formation in the Milky Way's spiral disk — and it's not as far out from the center of our galaxy as you might imagine.

The Milky Way is at least 100,000 light-years across, but the new results suggest that the galaxy's star formation takes place within a region that extends to a radius of 40,000 light-years from the galactic center.

(Image credit: ESA/Gaia/DPAC/S.…