A former NASA analyst has explained why images of our own galaxy, the Milky Way, aren't real.
We simply don't have images of the Milky Way, explained science communicator and former NASA space analyst Alexandra Dotten.
“Every full-length image we see of the Milky Way is an illustration. We can’t see the Milky Way that way, and I don’t think people ever will.” The reason for this is simple: We’ve never been able to observe the Milky Way from anywhere other than the edge of our galaxy’s spiral arm.
We are in the thick of things.
the IFLScience According to him, the story resembles the shape of the Earth, which people at that time could roughly recognize from mapping the surface, studying the movement and shape of planets and stars, and precise measurements of the planet's gravity at different points.
All of this helped determine the shape of the Earth, including the fact that it's not perfectly round, but we never got a full picture of the Earth until someone left it and got far enough away to photograph it.
The first photo of the entire planet Earth was taken in 1972, when astronaut Harrison Schmitt, or Ron Evans, took a photo from aboard Apollo 17 on their way to the moon.
The image, known as the Blue Glass Globe, is the first to show Earth in all its glory. Harrison Schmitt/Eugene Cernan/Ronald Evans/NASA/Apollo 17
This was the first time an Apollo mission orbit had allowed such a picture to be taken, and the result was the famous blue glass ball image.
However, moving out of the galaxy just to take a photo is a whole other level for species that haven't even left the solar system yet.
In order to image the Milky Way, the spacecraft must move either up or down from the Milky Way disk, traveling unfathomable distances, Dutton explained.
This does not mean that we do not know what the Milky Way looks like.
Structure of the Milky Way. Image: Wikimedia Commons/NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESO/R. Hurts
Most of the things we see in the night sky are stars in our galaxy that we can map. We can see a large part of the galaxy in the night sky, so we can get an idea of what it looks like.
According to Dutton, it's like sitting on a Ferris wheel and trying to photograph it at its full diameter.
We can see and photograph enough things in our galaxy to get a good idea of what it looks like. By mapping the stars in it and looking at their shape, we can determine that we live in one of the arms of a spiral galaxy with arms.
@astro_alexandra In response to @walkieescobell How do we know what our galaxy, the Milky Way, looks like? #space #astronomy #NASA #sciences
Unfortunately, due to the vast distances, we will probably never be able to see the Milky Way from far enough away to take a real picture of it.
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