Starship Asterisk*

Hi... I don't know wether this is the right place for "laic questions" or not, but this doubt came to my mind when I was seeing some pictures at Astronomy Picture of the Day and I guees doubts of APOD are accepted... So, I know man can see other galaxies out there, but I don't know how man was able to see our own galaxy... As far as I know, man itself has not been able to go further than the moon... so how do we have those beautiful Milky Way's picutres? And if they made that Milky Way's image up, why did man do that way?
I hope you guys have understood my question... I'm a brazilian geology student, and we started studying the origins of the universe and therefore of the Earth... And I sort of loved Astronomy.

Than you in advance.

Maybe they're just guessing based on watching other galaxies?

I don't know how much of our galaxy have been mapped, but the more stars being mapped (3d-positioning), the better a "virtual-view" you would get of the galaxy.

If you're interested, you could check out this software:
http://haydenplanetarium.org/universe/
Which let you view in 3D some collected data about our galaxy and also inter-galactic data. I personally find it more intuitive to view these things in 3D than as a static photography.
- Running the program: use milkyway.bat to run the MilkyWay data and extragalactic.bat to view the stuff on galactic scale.
- Viewing tip: turn off the Point-button. And then in the drop-drown meny, to the right of the home button, select Poly-Size and adjust the size with the ruler to the right. This exaggerate the size of the objects, but makes is easier to view distance objects.

hishadow wrote:Maybe they're just guessing based on watching other galaxies?

I don't know how much of our galaxy have been mapped, but the more stars being mapped (3d-positioning), the better a "virtual-view" you would get of the galaxy.

If you're interested, you could check out this software:
http://haydenplanetarium.org/universe/
Which let you view in 3D some collected data about our galaxy and also inter-galactic data. I personally find it more intuitive to view these things in 3D than as a static photography.
- Running the program: use milkyway.bat to run the MilkyWay data and extragalactic.bat to view the stuff on galactic scale.
- Viewing tip: turn off the Point-button. And then in the drop-drown meny, to the right of the home button, select Poly-Size and adjust the size with the ruler to the right. This exaggerate the size of the objects, but makes is easier to view distance objects.

Thank you for the post, hishadow! I know my question sounded so stupid... but, I HAD to ask. Also thanks for the software! See you!

We have to look at the Milky Way from the inside. to one side we can see some of the center of the Milky Way and toward the other side we see more of the edge of the spiral arm that we are in. Here is a good picture of what we can see of the Milky Way. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060801.html
Here is more useful information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
Orin

orin stepanek wrote:We have to look at the Milky Way from the inside. to one side we can see some of the center of the Milky Way and toward the other side we see more of the edge of the spiral arm that we are in. Here is a good picture of what we can see of the Milky Way. http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060801.html
Here is more useful information.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milky_Way
Orin

Makes sence! I should've thought about that, but I haven't got this Astronomy view... Thanks a lot Orion... for the post... !