by Chris Peterson » Wed Jan 07, 2009 4:45 pm
Amateur wrote:Very interesting. The comment on Saturn plus the text "objects less than 20x our solar system are discernible" got me wondering how it would look if HST and Spitzer took a similar shot from Galactic centre towards our solar system ? I guess we are surrounded by similarly much gas and dust and stars.
No, we're not. A view of our region from the galactic center would look much like images we take from here towards most other parts of the sky. The density of material (and stars) near the center of the Milky Way is much higher than it is out here towards the edge.
Dust and gas also concentrate along shock boundaries, but we aren't currently near any. Our region of space is pretty clear of dust, and the star density isn't very high, either.
[quote="Amateur"]Very interesting. The comment on Saturn plus the text "objects less than 20x our solar system are discernible" got me wondering how it would look if HST and Spitzer took a similar shot from Galactic centre towards our solar system ? I guess we are surrounded by similarly much gas and dust and stars.[/quote]
No, we're not. A view of our region from the galactic center would look much like images we take from here towards most other parts of the sky. The density of material (and stars) near the center of the Milky Way is much higher than it is out here towards the edge.
Dust and gas also concentrate along shock boundaries, but we aren't currently near any. Our region of space is pretty clear of dust, and the star density isn't very high, either.