system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Is the galaxy a mostly flat plane like it’s depicted in pictures? If so, why?

In most artistic depictions of the Milky Way galaxy, it’s illustrated as a roughly flat 2 dimensional plane. What I was wondering is if that’s really the case, or if solar bodies revolve  “above” (relative to said 2D “plane”) and “below” the center of the Milky Way?
gpt
To add some numbers to the good answers here: our galaxy has some thickness to it, but it’s wider than it is thick by a factor of 10-50 depending on how you measure.  Roughly the same relative thickness as a thin-crust pizza.