Can you actually see the Milky Way?
From Earth, it can be seen as a hazy form of stars in the night sky that the naked eye can barely notice. You can see the Milky Way all year, no matter where you are in the world. It's visible just so long as the sky is clear and the light pollution is minimal.
Low Surface Brightness:
This makes the Milky Way difficult to see from any location on Earth where light pollution is common – such as urban or suburban locations – or when stray light from the Moon is a factor.
It's important to remember that we live inside the Milky Way Galaxy, so there's no way to show a true photograph of what the Milky Way looks like. We can see pictures of the Milky Way from inside it, or see artist illustrations of what the Milky Way might look like from outside.
The Milky Way used to be visible on every clear, moonless night, everywhere in the world. Today, however, most people live in places where it's impossible to see the Milky Way because of widespread light pollution caused by lights left on all night long.
Have you seen it in the night sky? If you could see our galaxy from the side, it would look like a huge, thin disk with a slight bump in the center. This flat shape is caused by the galaxy spinning around.
Observing stars beyond our Galaxy
It is possible to see stars outside of the Milky Way Galaxy, but not as individual points. If you take a look within the wedge-shaped constellation of Andromeda you'll see the elongated misty patch known as M31, or the Andromeda Galaxy.
The Milky Way, the brilliant river of stars that has dominated the night sky and human imaginations since time immemorial, is but a faded memory to one-third of humanity and 80 percent of Americans, according to a new global atlas of light pollution produced by Italian and American scientists.
The technology required to travel between galaxies is far beyond humanity's present capabilities, and currently only the subject of speculation, hypothesis, and science fiction. However, theoretically speaking, there is nothing to conclusively indicate that intergalactic travel is impossible.
What is this? The 2016 study found that in the large urban centers, viewing the Milky Way is virtually impossible with the naked eye, making it pretty much invisible to almost 80% of Americans.
Our Milky Way galaxy is just one of the billions of galaxies in the universe. Within it, there are at least 100 billion stars, and on average, each star has at least one planet orbiting it. This means there are potentially thousands of planetary systems like our solar system within the galaxy!
How many years does the Milky Way have left?
Milky Way Has 4 Billion Years to Live — But Our Sun Will Survive. Please be respectful of copyright.
Astronomers estimate that 100 million black holes roam among the stars in our Milky Way galaxy, but they have never conclusively identified an isolated black hole.
Waimea Canyon, located on the island of Kauai far from the most populated islands, is one of the best places to see our Milky Way in the US. If you happen to be in Maui or the Big Island, Haleakala National Park and Mauna Kea are also ideal for astro.
Looking toward the dark skies at the right time of year, the naked human eye should see a whitish glow stretching in a huge arc. This band has been visible in the heavens since Earth first formed. This glowing line of light is the center of our galaxy, as seen from one of its spiral arms where we are located.
Every location in the universe has its own sphere of observation beyond which it cannot see. Since our observable universe is not infinite, it has an edge.
Today, the Milky Way galaxy possesses a supermassive black hole of 4.3 million solar masses. While this might seem tremendous, it's unusually small for a galaxy as massive as our own.
Distance Information
The Milky Way is about 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 km (about 100,000 light years or about 30 kpc) across.
In 2009, astronomers were able to identify a chemical called ethyl formate in a big dust cloud at the center of the Milky Way. Ethyl formate happens to be responsible for the flavor of raspberries (it also smells like rum). Space tastes like raspberries!
In galactic terms, Andromeda is nearby and it orbits a common center of gravity with the Milky Way but it's still 2.5 million light-years away. Even so, M31 is by far the easiest galaxy to find and observe in our night sky and is believed to look like the Milky Way too.
You can see the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye on a clear night with no moon, even in places with a little light pollution. It has an apparent magnitude of 3.44.
How many galaxies are in the universe?
This tiny patch of sky was full of galaxies, almost 10,000, of all different sizes and shapes. By multiplying this number by the number of times this tiny patch of sky would fit into the entire sky, astronomers came up with an estimate of between about 100 and 200 billion galaxies.
We can see that with the right equipment and enough time, astronauts are able to observe many stars as well as the Milky Way, our home galaxy! They experience night about 16 times a day, which gives them many opportunities to observe the stars.
From September to October: The Milky Way is visible in the evening. Look between 8 and 10 P.M. in the evening, looking up and towards the south. View on a new Moon or within a few days of the new Moon. In September 2022, the New Moon is on Sunday the 25th.
Yes, the Milky Way can be seen quite clearly from earth. You just need to go somewhere dark. In fact, the name "Milky Way" is derived from its appearance in the sky (it looks like a milky path, or "way", in the sky).
Pictures of Earth from the outer solar system are rare because from that distance, Earth appears very close to our sun. A camera's sensitive detectors can be damaged by looking directly at the sun, just as a human being can damage his or her retina by doing the same.
In space or on the Moon there is no atmosphere to scatter light. The light from the sun travels a straight line without scattering and all the colors stay together. Looking toward the sun we thus see a brilliant white light while looking away we would see only the darkness of empty space.
Why can't we see stars in the pictures of spacewalking or moonwalking astronauts? The stars aren't visible because they are too faint. The astronauts in their white spacesuits appear quite bright, so they must use short shutter speeds and large f/stops to not overexpose the pictures.