[pics] For Your Astronomers: Pictures Of The Milky Way [Very Large Images]

[6Foot2]

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/figures/PIA12348_fig1.jpg

 

Combined to produce a composite image:

 

http://photojournal.jpl.nasa.gov/jpeg/PIA12348.jpg

[Rawns]

Which tiny spec are we then?

[DT2]

Just released:

 

Milky Way's centre of mass revealed...............

 

[sted]

Just released: [ATTACH=CONFIG]12280[/ATTACH]

 

Milky Way's centre of mass revealed...............

 

 

and all the missing matter in the universe is those polystyrene pellets used to fill the boxes of the machines looking for the missing matter

 

great pictures

[6Foot2]

Which tiny spec are we then?

 

These are not representations of what we believe the Milky Way looks like. This the view of the Milky Way from our perspective.

 

A 'top down' representational view of what we believe the Milky Way looks like:

 

http://www.rise-and-fall-of-alien-civilizations-in-our-own-galaxy.com/our-place-in-the-milky-way-galaxy-large.jpg

 

We are somewhere around the centre of the white cross.

[DT2]

Awesome pictures, I could lose myself looking at stuff like this

[jumpinjamez]

With these we could do a new new spot the ball competition called (are these still about?) Spot the planets.

[6Foot2]

With these we could do a new new spot the ball competition called (are these still about?) Spot the planets.

 

On this scale you would have trouble accurately placing a cross to pinpoint the EXACT location of the Solar System [and differentiating that entry from another one!]