Has our location in the galaxy allowed us to make advancement faster?

Question

Biologists can take cell samples. Chemists can play with the elements. Astronomers can only really practice their science through observation. I guess locally, we can collect samples from the moon, Mars, etc...

But say we orbited a star near the center of the galaxy. Concentrated so close to the center, would we even have a "night sky" to observe. How would our understanding of the universe be if we were unable to observe anything outside of our galaxy? Would the same or similar be true if we were at the center of a globular cluster as well?

Answer 1

or how about our sun being surrounded by diffuse nebulae.  there would be only darkness.   or if we lived in the degenerate period when our suns current output would exceed an entire galaxy's.   or..........

I would say our location makes us...well... us

Answer 2

You raise a very interesting point!

Not only has our position in the galaxy made scientific advancement easier, but it probably made life possible in the first place.

If our Sun were close to the center of the galaxy, for example, the Earth probably would not have formed.  Intense radiation prevents planets from forming, and if there's one thing the galactic core has plenty of, it's radiation.  Even if a rocky planet could form, it would be a barren, radiation-baked world.  The same would be true in globular clusters.

What if the Sun had formed outside of the galactic disk.  We wouldn't be around to ponder these questions in that case either.  Hugely massive stars in the galactic disk formed heavy metals and then exploded, spewing these metals into the interstellar medium billions of years ago.  The metals allowed the formation of our solar system (and probably many others).  It is therefore unlikely that solar systems like our own would have formed outside the galactic disk.

So, you ask if our position in the Milky Way has affected our advancements in astronomy.  I say yes, but then again, it's the only position we could have had, and we did the best we could with what we got.  I hope that helps.  Good luck!

Answer 3

Excellent question and I think others here have answered it rightly so.

The center region of the galaxy is more active with emmission and radiations. More stars and stellar activity. We would have to peer through more local star clusters in order to see the universe.

We could still evolve though, and the requirements near the interior of the galaxy may be much higher in order for life to exist. If you could exist there, your struggles would be greater, and if you could evolve through it, you would be stronger.

The more region of space that is less densely packed the easier it would be for us to see all the cosmos, but of course the trade off might be in no detection of unknown bodies in space against the infrared background radiation. At least the development of technologies will be influenced by where we are.