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I was hoping there was some astronomy or astrology symbol for the Milky Way, but no luck so far. Anyone have a clever way I could make such a symbol, perhaps one that resembles a spiral galaxy?

Some people have taken this question to be about printing a simple spiral in LaTeX. But most spiral galaxies do not resemble spirals. The Milky Way, for example, has quite a few arms.

One might argue that it resembles an asterisk whose pixels undergo a rotation about the asterisk center, where the angle of rotation is proportional to the pixel radius. But I'm not sure how one would accomplish that kind of rotation in LaTeX — it's just the best thought I've had so far.

I've also looked through the comprehensive list of LaTeX symbols, and I do not see one which resembles a spiral galaxy.

Translunar
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    Maybe take an galaxy icon and include it as image https://www.google.de/search?hl=de&q=icon%20galaxy – samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Aug 25 '16 at 14:58
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    Apparently none of the close-voters know the difference between a spiral and a spiral galaxy ;-) –  Aug 26 '16 at 13:24
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    Vote to reopen: This question is less specific. A galaxy symbol is not necessarily a spiral, even if it is one "that perhaps resembles a spiral galaxy". For instance, a rotated \S could be a legitimate answer here (resemble a barred spiral galaxy) , but not in the linked question. – Fran Aug 27 '16 at 03:43
  • @Fran Given that the question is not very specific about what sort of galaxy symbol is required, and spiral galaxies are mentioned and are widely recognised as"galaxies", I don't see the case for reopening... –  Aug 31 '16 at 08:36
  • @Andrew Yes, spiral galaxies are the most typical galaxies, but the point is that even these galaxies can be represented by just a spiral curve (and then it is OK answer in How can I write a spiral symbol?) or with something else (that is not a valid answer in that question, but it is perfectly valid here). – Fran Aug 31 '16 at 09:14
  • How to look up a symbo – Seamus Aug 31 '16 at 09:36
  • Okay, just coming back from vacation with no internet, and for sure, this is not a duplicate. The spirals in the linked question are single-arm spirals, but a spiral galaxy has lots of arms. It's more like if you rotated different points in an asterisk proportional to the radius from the asterisk center. – Translunar Sep 08 '16 at 15:06
  • @Dr.JohnnyMohawk: How about you use MS Paint and draw it as an example. That would make things clearer and perhaps result in symbol-like drawings being made (using a graphics package like tikz) instead of straight-up symbols. – Werner Sep 08 '16 at 18:25
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    You are lucky man! Vacation without of internet tyranny! What a luxury :-). Seriously: I doubt that exist a spiral symbol with many arms. A solution seems to be draw it by some program (pstrick, tikz) . – Zarko Sep 08 '16 at 18:26
  • Here are a bunch of different representations that have been used for spiral galaxies in the past (specifically ours): http://www.native-science.net/MilkyWay.Centre.htm I'd really take any of those symbols, but the best representation of the spiral galaxy would be the second image. – Translunar Sep 08 '16 at 21:12
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    Have you seen https://openclipart.org/detail/217472/galaxy, https://openclipart.org/detail/211401/spiral-galaxy, and https://openclipart.org/detail/167636/galaxy ? – Thérèse Feb 07 '18 at 02:32
  • @Thérèse Thanks! The second link is exactly what I'm looking for. Do you know how one would typeset this as a character instead of as an image? Or is it simpler just to do \includegraphics? – Translunar Feb 08 '18 at 15:21
  • You could create your own font with just that symbol, but it wouldn’t make for accessibility unless the symbol is in Unicode. It’s probably best to use this approach: https://tex.stackexchange.com/q/412868 – Thérèse Feb 08 '18 at 18:28

1 Answers1

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A creation of the galaxy symbol to spire with a \newcommand{\galaxy}. This picture is been by me created with a vectorial software. The .pdf file is no longer available but you can use the image given.

enter image description here

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\newcommand{\galaxy}{\includegraphics[width=0.13in]{image}}
\begin{document}
This is a galaxy spiral \galaxy.
\end{document}

Here is the image converted (from png) to hi-res jpeg:

enter image description here

Sebastiano
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