The Milky Way is a galaxy that contains our Solar System and planet Earth. The first to guess about its existence was the Italian scientist Galileo Galilei, when he saw a huge cluster of stars in the sky through a telescope. However, he could not even imagine that it was a whole galaxy; such a term did not exist in his time. Many years later, in the 18th century, scientists Immanuel Kant and Thomas Wright suggested that the Milky Way is a huge disk of stars, inside which our Solar System is located. And only at the beginning of the 20th century, Edwin Hubble found convincing evidence that the Milky Way is one of many galaxies in the Universe. You can find many images of what the Milky Way looks like on the Internet. But none of these “pictures” are real. Why do you think that is?
This is not a photograph of the Milky Way, but an image created by an artist. Source: kipmu.ru
In fact, the answer to this question is very simple, and anyone can give it. However, NASA space analyst Alexandra Doten explained the reason for those who have never been interested in space.
What does the Milky Way galaxy look like
Any image of the Milky Way on the Internet and in books is a picture created by artists. Throughout the history of mankind, people have not taken a single photo of their native galaxy, and it is unlikely that anyone will succeed in doing so.
Model of the appearance of the Milky Way. Source: eso.org
It is important to note that we are only talking about images where the Milky Way appears as a huge spiral in space. And if the photo shows a bright line of many stars in the sky, this is a real photo, in which the galactic center, the arms of the galaxy and dust clouds are visible.
Photograph of the Milky Way from Earth. Source: astronet.ru
The solar system is located in the Orion arm. From this angle, we can see the center of the galaxy, where the black hole Sagittarius A* is located, as well as some arms and dense clouds of gas and dust.
Location of the Solar System in the Milky Way. Source: astronet.ru
To see the Milky Way galaxy from the outside, humanity needs to build an unimaginably powerful spaceship that can cover a distance of thousands of light years. Considering that today we cannot even send people to neighboring Mars, such a mission will not be accomplished anytime soon. Perhaps we will never leave the Milky Way at all, and space travel will remain on the pages of science fiction books.
Related article: What does the Milky Way galaxy revolve around?
First photographs of Earth
We can't look at the Milky Way galaxy from the outside, just as we couldn't see what planet Earth actually looks like decades ago. We only know the Milky Way's shape from studying the motion of stars and other data collected by telescopes. In the same way, we used to know that Earth was oval-shaped only from surface mapping and mathematical calculations.
The first photograph of Earth was taken in October 1946 by a camera attached to an American V-2 ballistic missile. The image was black and white, low-resolution, and did not cover the entire globe.
The first photo of Earth from space, taken in 1946. Source: nasa.gov
A high-quality photo of the globe was taken in 1972, from the Apollo 17 spacecraft. The crew members were astronauts Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt – their flight trajectory to the Moon made it possible for the first time to create such a detailed photo.
The first color photo of Earth, which was given the name “Blue Marble”. Source: nasa.gov
Read all: The most amazing photos of Earth from space in the history of observations
Photograph of the Andromeda Galaxy
It is impossible to take a panoramic picture of the Milky Way because we are inside it, we have already understood this. But detailed pictures of Andromeda and other galaxies can be taken.
In 2015, the Hubble Space Telescope took one of the highest quality photographs of the Andromeda galaxy, which covered 100 million stars. To take the picture, they had to take many different frames and then glue them together into one image – in essence, astronomers were assembling a huge puzzle.
The Andromeda Galaxy, photographed by the Hubble Space Observatory. Source: nasa.gov
Even amateur astronomers can see parts of the galaxies. But the most detailed images are only obtained by expensive space observatories. You can see the shots they took on the Hubble telescope website and the NASA space agency's collection of images and videos.
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In addition to the Milky Way and Andromeda, scientists are carefully studying the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. The distance from us to them is about 150,000 light years, which is very little on a cosmic scale. Observing these objects can tell a lot about the structure of the Universe and the formation of stars. Read more about this in our article “Astronomers have been looking at the Magellanic Clouds for years: what are they looking for?”