Why can we see our own galaxy when were in it?

Question

we are in the milky way and from a picture from wikipedia we are able to see our own galaxy.but how?

Answer 1

The galaxy is shaped like a huge flat disc, and we're way out at the edge. So when we look towards the center, we can see the density of stars in the disc in a band across the sky.

Think of sitting in one of the teacups on the ride at disneyland. If you look straight across the plane of the ride, you see lots of other teacups. If you look up or down, you don't see any.

Answer 2

i always thought about this... just makes no sense.. its like looking at your pupils.

Answer 3

it is somewhat flat and you are looking through the densest part of it

Answer 4

We use various methods to measure the direction and distance to different parts of our galaxy. We enter the coordinates of each part of the galaxy in a computer. Then we program the computer to show us what the galaxy would look like from a location outside of the galaxy. The program is a type of mathematical transformation. It works just like the virtual world of a video game.

Answer 5

They are showing U other Galaxy that they think is similar to ours.

Answer 6

You are do not understand our position in the galaxy, which is why it seems illogical to be able to see ourselves in it.

The Milky Way Galaxy is a large spiral shaped galaxy.  This means if you take a center point, and draw many spiraled arms off of the middle, you would get a general schematic of our galaxy.  

We are located on the very far outside edge of an arm of the galaxy.  The Milky Way is huge, and we do not even know what is completely in the galaxy, because we can not see much.

To further understand what our galaxy looks like, you need to envision a quarter.  If you look at a quarter face on, you see the whole quarter. But, if you look at its edge, all you see is a solid edge.  This is a close analogy of what we see when we look at the Milky Way.

If we look up into the sky  on a clear night, we can see a band of tightly clustered stars dim against the night sky.  This is the Milky Way.  We are only seeing it from the edge, so all of the stars in the galaxy look clustered together because of our viewpoint.  

We know that the Milky Way has a black hole near the center of the galaxy.  Most else of the galaxy is unexplored, because we just can not see into it.  Luckily for us ,we are near the edge of the galaxy, so we can see out very easily.  This is one feature that gives our Hubble Telescope a good view of other galaxies.  But, Hubble can not look into our galaxy very effectively because of our orientation.

I hope this helps to explain things.

And, to add further mystery, it is a good possibility that there is life on a planet in our own galaxy.  We lack the ability to look into the area closest to us!

Good Luck

Answer 7

We cannot see our own galaxy in full from a top-down angle.  The Milky Way is the best we can do.  If you're looking at a "picture" of our galaxy's spiral shape from above, you're looking at an artist's drawing, not a photograph.

Answer 8

we don't actually have a picture of what our galaxy would look like outside the galaxy. you probably found a picture looking at the center of the milky way, known as the galactic center. is this the picture?

http://www.astropix.com/HTML/D_SUM_S/MIL...

thats actually a picture taken from earth, or by earth looking into the center of the galaxy. people commonly call this sight the "milky way".

if your talking about this picture:

http://schoolnet.gov.mt/earth_universe/i...

this picture, and other pictures showing the entire milky way galaxy are artisits impressions. its an acurate depiction, but its not a real picture. the end of the galaxy from where we are now is about 1 light year. we sit on one of the outer branches of our galaxy. to give some prespective, it would take us 1 year to get to the end if we were traveling at light speed. and we would need to travel about 100 more to get that kind of picture. and so far, no speed of aircraft or shuttles come anywhere close to light speed. and by the way, wikipedia isn't always the best source of information.

Answer 9

You can see your own body but you are in it, how?

A: You can only see part of your body - just like we can only see part of our own galaxy.

By the way, it's actually much nicer to go outside at night and look at the galaxy itself (especially with binoculars or a telescope) instead of pictures on a computer screen...

Answer 10

Our galaxy, the milky way, is a sprial galaxy , which means the centre is quite dense & flat and there are arms (composed of other stars) Coming out from around this circular structure.

Now, we are located at the tip of one of these arms. So what you see is actually the central portion.

Answer 11

Computer animation is a wonderful thing.  It makes it possible to see our galaxy from a vantage point which we could not possible have in reality.

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

That is an artist's impression of what our galaxy would look like to an observer outside of it.  It could even the same image that caused your confusion.

From where we are, we see the milky way as a band of stars and clouds in space across the entire sky.   That is how it appears from inside.