Isn't it impossible to have pictures of the Milky Way?

Question

I remember, vividly, in school seeing Weekly Readers, textbooks and poster diagrams with pictures of the Milky Way.

Today the thought came to my mind, can how can you photograph your house when your camera is INSIDE it?

The Hubble Telescope is INSIDE the Milky Way and furthest spacecraft away from earth is just barely passed Jupiter.

When we see pictures of the Milky Way, what are we looking at? A digital composite of what its theorised to look like? Another, similar galaxy? A combination of both?

Thanks in advance, it would be interesting to know :)

Answer 1

yes ,impossible .the pictures you probably saw was Andromeda,our sister galaxy,some think the milky way looks similar. we can photograph the milky way from the inside looking out ,but not from out looking in.......tom

Answer 2

Yes- Based on our current technology, it is impossible to take a picture of the Milky way similar to the pictures that the Hubble telescope takes of other galaxies that are far away. this is in part due to interstellar dust.  However, we can make a good guess at what it looks like based on the portions of what pictures we have. We have made computer models which  are probably a close representation. The galaxy is in all likelihood a spiral similar in size and structure to M81.

Answer 3

What we see is the part of the Milky way that is visible to us. This is only about a quarter to a half of the plane of the galaxy, because the rest is obscured. Exact pictures are impossible due to this. Therefore, pictures are based on theories and calculations how the Milky Way affects other galaxies around us, and on the relative speed and distance of stars near the outer and inner sections.

The Voyagers are the furthest satellites from Earth that are still functional, and they are already at the edge of the Solar System, much further than Jupiter.

Answer 4

Yes it is impossible however they take what we can see which isnt much and look at other galaxies and found that they follow a patern of what they look like and then they take a certain family of galaxies and insert what we know of ours and  to come up with a picture. We know ours is flaten with spiral arms and if you ever go into the country far away from city lights look up and youll see this as a flaten milky streamline across our sky at night. All these varables are taken in to create our picture of the milky way

Answer 5

No it's not impossible at all.  Earth is out on the end of an arm, near the edge of the galaxy.  Well, at least with the bulk of it off to one side.  So, it's more like taking a picture of your cruise ship when you're standing on the stern.   You can't see the whole thing, and you only get one view, but you sure can take the picture.   Other pictures, like ones of the whole spiral galaxy, are either pictures of other similar galaxies or are pictures of graphic reconstructions from what we know of the structure of the galaxy.

Answer 6

http://homeboyastronomy.com/wp-content/u...

its not impossible but all we can get is the view from what it looks like from the inside.