Today we believe the Milky Way is 13.21 billion years old, and that we are located at a distance of  8kpc (calculated using different methods, see summary in Table [1] below) from the Galactic Center. A wealth of new techniques and data analysis methods for space exploration have been developed since the early scientific efforts mentioned previously, yet we still do not have a precise 3D map of our galaxy. There are multiple advantages to building one, ranging from the large spatial resolution of observations conducted in our galactic neighborhood (which allows us to collect detailed information about specific types of objects), to the possibility of discovering and testing theories on the Milky Way which we could expand for the future study of other galaxies.

RR Lyrae Variables 8.0 0.5
Globular Clusters 8.0 0.8
Miras 7.9 1.0
Cepheids 8.0 0.5
OB Stars 9.1 1.0
HI and HII regions 8.1 0.5
H2O proper motion 7.2 0.7
OH/ IR stars 8.1 1.1
Nearby stars/ Oort constants 8.9 1.0
X-Ray Sources 7.4 1.0
Planetary Nebulae 7.6 0.7
Red Giants 7.9 1.0
Sgr A* Proper Motions 7.7 0.9
Weighted Average 8.0 0.5