How did nasa take a picture of our galaxy the milkyway?

Question

an outside looking in picture

Answer 1

never did, never will.

we construct an image of what the Milky Way looks like from the observations of what we can see in the night sky, like this image:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Milky...

in this diagram you can see just how much of our galaxy we can't see:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Milky...

often you will see pictures of other galaxies with notes "This is thought to be what the Milky Way looks like"

Personally, I think we are kinda unique.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:23608...

Answer 2

a big telescope

Answer 3

they can't take a real picture. They have fancy technology that allows them to computer generate a picture of what the galaxy would look like.

Answer 4

they haven't. they can't.

by measuring stars we can see they can figure out what our galaxsee looks like from outside. they can either draw a picture, or show other galaxsees that look like ours.

Answer 5

No one has a picture of our Galaxy taken from the outside looking in.  What we have (at best) is a computer-constructed image based on measurements that we make from the inside, and based on what other galaxies look like.

It is a bit like trying to imagine what your own house looks like from the outside, without stepping outside.  You measure all the rooms from the inside, look at the placement of windows, peek in the attic to get an idea of the shape of the roof and so on.  Then you look out the window at other houses in the neighborhood, looking for houses that look like yours.

Look, that one has a shape that could fit, it has the right number of floors and the roof seems to be the right shape... except that what you think is the bathroom (they usually have smaller windows) is on the wrong side.

So you draw a house like that one, and place the bathroom window on the other side and you keep that as your "picture" of your house... until you discover something else that does not quite fit (and you correct the "picture".

We have just discovered that our Galaxy has a central bar, when we had thought, all along, that it was a "normal" spiral galaxy (no bar).  We discovered that by looking for signs of a particular isotope of radioactive aluminum that reveals the presence of giant stars.

It is a bit like looking for tiny vent pipes on the roof of houses, that tell you where the plumbing comes up through floors, helping you guess where the washrooms (and maybe the kitchen) are located.

Answer 6

They can't, but sometimes they use a picture of a galaxy which they believe resembles ours, although in those cases, there should be some mention of the name of the galaxy you're actually lookign at

Answer 7

The Aliens sent it to us - I think high res email, maybe telepathically, but not 100% sure

Answer 8

They didn't. No photograph you've ever seen was of our galaxy, but of a galaxy that has a similar appearance to ours. Any depictions that claimed to be of our galaxy were artist's renderings, not photos.

Answer 9

They did not ... It is a picture of another Galaxy ...

Answer 10

They have many modern telescopes just like spitzer space telescope and other infrared observatories which collect radiations from the galaxy and then translate it as an image.