Whenever you guys discuss cosmic rays etc, if a report/project etc is asked for, if you want to blow your prof away, make an at home particle detector and take it to class for a demo. It's incredibly easy. Theres a setup called a cloud chamber. You'll be able to visibly see alpha particles etc. My prof loved it and the rest of the class was in awe.

Sweet man. I'm sure your prof would give you extra credit if you went on sloans site and wrote a report haha I took a bunch of astronomy classes when I was in school and loved it. I went for aerospace engineering and ended up doing a minor in physics because I got obsessed with it lol Outside of that, 6 of my required electives were astronomy. 4 with the same prof who was probably the best teacher I ever had. He worked at nasa for like 16 years I think, retired and started teaching. His level of passion showed every single class. He's a rare breed.

Our maps of not just the milky way, but the observable universe are far beyond any comparison to medieval era maps which in some cases were quite inaccurate. One such map we've made for the observable universe is the Sloan digital sky survey. Its one of the most detailed maps in human history, and we have a 3d model of the universe. Google it and go to its website. You can fly around the universe there in amazing detail. The amount of data it has is insane. It's literally the largest 3d map ever created

Look up the Sloan digital sky survey. Its work is INCREDIBLE. Also, thanks to such surveys, we know the distances of the stars and whether they're interacting gravitationally, as in following the same orbit around the galactic center, comparing their distance to much closer stars we know are in the galaxy with 100% certainty etc. By measuring the position, trajectories and so on, we can accurately determine its shape. On the Sloan survey website you can load up the 3d map and go fly through the universe, everything you see is exactly how it is out there in the universe