How is it possible that we can see 10-15 billion light years away with the Hubble. We know the Milky Way is?

Question

located on the Orion Arm but can not say for sure how many planets are located in our galaxy?

Answer 1

the distance makes everything so small, and sense planets don't emit their own light you have to go by a stars movement which takes a while to determine. imagine trying to find a skin flake on a beach, quite similar.

Answer 2

In a single word, the answer to your question is "glare." The distance to even the nearest extrasolar planet is so great that such planets are mere hundredths of arcseconds from their parent star therefore totally hidden by the glare of that star. No existing telescope, including the Hubble, has either the magnification nor resolution to "see" planets that close to a star.

The only image we have of an extrasolar planet can be seen at this website =>http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/...

Answer 3

I think submitter is asking why, if the Hubble has a resolution sufficient to see galaxies billions of light years away, why can't it zoom in and take high-quality pictures of planets on our own galaxy that are only ten or twenty thousand light years away.

Answer 4

For the same reason why it's difficult to see your own nose, or your own back. The eyes (in this case, the Hubble) are too nearby to have a vantage point from which we can see the Solar System and the Milky Way Galaxy.

Answer 5

I am sure you mean "...how many planets are located in our solar system?"  It could also mean in our galaxy, but let's start closer to home.  The business with Pluto being demoted to something less than a planet is just political c**p, just like the stuff we see in the present election campaign every day.  Whenever politicians get their hands on something they manage to ruin it for all of us.  I grew up thinking Pluto was a planet, and regardless what these loudmouoth idiots say, as far as I am concerned, Pluto is still a planet.

As far as planets in out galaxy are concerned, to nail down a planet you have to study a very tiny spot in the sky, an infinitesimal fraction of a minute or second of an arc... a very tiny tiny spot.  Since the Galaxy covers a large part of the sky, to study every tiny tiny spot would take hundreds, if not thousands, of years.  

The Hubble sees pretty images from galaxies far, far away, a long, long time ago, and those images cover an area many millions of times larger than the same size spot in out own nearby galaxy; it' the same effect as a car right in front of you  on the highway looks a lot bigger than one a mile away, but it isn't really, it only looks that way from where you are standing.    So the Hubble images, even though the pretty spots might look smaller than our own galaxy, actually might be much, much bigger, like an 18-wheeler a mile away would look much smaller than a Toyota right in front of you.  Now, if you had to study the tail lights of the Toyota, which look bigger than the 18-wheeler, that's a fairly easy job, but to study the tail lights of the tiny 18-wheeler requires looking at a much smaller area in your whole field of vision.  So the stuff we are seeing with Hubble is the entire 18-wheeler; we have not yet narrowed it down to see the tiny spots in that image that make up the tail lights.

Answer 6

Yeah, I do agree with Evirusth....the distace make things smaller ....imagine this idea: if u hold a mirror very close to your eyes to look at your face...sure it will be very difficult to examine and define all your face......but if u keep moving the mirror away,...then u will see that your image in the mirror is becoming more defined.  And u know? to take a good picture for the mountain is not to climb on it but lather move quite far so that it will fit well in your camera lens.

And did u note: The bodies that the Hubble  telescope sees 2day may either died ( no more exist) long time ago coz what u see is their history in the past....of course there is a delay of light for tht time 10-15 billions light years away. Or either those bodies are twice far away if they are moving away from the observer