If we were to be looking at our Milky Way galaxy from outside the galaxy, would we see the very bright inner part?
If yes, why is it very dim as we see it, when we are in fact much closer?
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answers:
poldi2 say: Yes, we would see the bright core if we were outside the galaxy.
We don't see it from here because of the lanes and clouds of dust and gas between us and the core.
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Jeffrey K say: We are looking at the center thru the egde of spiral arms. Many stars and dust and gas are in the way. Looking from above would br a lot clearer.
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CarolOklaNola say: It would depend on WHERE you are relative to the Equatorial plane of the Milky Way Galaxy. From our perspective on the outer edge of the of Orion bulge of the Orion arm, when we look toward the halo and hub of the Milky Way Galaxy and the Sagittarius arm, the Hub is hidden by dark dust and gas with all the stars in the Sagittarius A behind it . If you want to see it yourself and you live in an area where artificial light pollution doesn't wipe out everything except the brightest stars and 5 visible planets and you are in the northern hemisphere, look south between 3 and 4 am daylight time at the lower southwest corner of the Teapot asterism. You may be able to see the two dark lanes of dust with the "fog" that doesn't move of the stars of the Sagittarius Arm behind it. Give me 5 minutes to check Stellarium on my PC.
Right now at 1am CDT in central Oklahoma the Sagittarius Arm is along my southeastern horizon with Jupiter at 5 degrees altitude.
Depending on where you are, yes
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Starrysky say: We on Earth are in a spiral arm of the Milky Way. We are about in the middle (vertically) of a thickly clotted and generally opaque one. When we view toward the galaxy center, dust and gas makes stars there dimmer or not seen at all.
If a distant astronomer views the Milky Way from edge on, he might see what we see--dark arms wrapped around a bit of glow at the core. Or, if from a different angle, she might see something like the Andromeda spiral, M31. There the core is very bright because it is not covered by a dark arm. If the astronomer looks straight on at the whole disk, then it would see a full pinwheel with a center bar, like NGC 6744 here: https://www.space.com/11841-milky-spiral...
That shows everything. Lots of bright stars in the center bulge.
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Nyx say: Certainly. Photos of other galaxies prove that.
Like this one, of the Virgo supercluster (which we're part of0.
https://www.universetoday.com/wp-content...
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Choose a bloody best answer. It's not hard. say: Photos of galaxies in books are long exposures. There is more concentration of stars and light in the core, but nothing like what you see in these photos. From not far outside the galaxy you would see the core and the shape of the spiral arms, but it would be a dim glow.
The Andromeda galaxy is about 20 "Milky-Way diameters" distant, close enough to be bigger than the full moon in the sky, but the naked eye sees only a dim smear, and the eye at a telescope sees it larger and only a little brighter.
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John say: Obscuration by dust hides most stars beyond about 3000 light years. Hence the milky way looks far dimmer than it would if light from all the stars reached us.
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Henry say: The earth is probably flat with some curve.
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