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4 NASA Photos Show Stunning Views Of The Milky Way Galaxy
BY ELANA GLOWATZ @ELANAGLOW ON 11/10/17 AT 5:11 PM
Scientists have used fancy telescopes to take numerous photos of galaxies around the universe, but we still don’t have any complete pictures of our own. The Milky Way galaxy is massive, and we can’t take a single image of the whole thing unless we were to travel really far away and actually leave it.
Our instruments have barely made it out of the solar system: The Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 spacecraft launched in 1977 and are billions of miles away from Earth, but they have only recently reached interstellar space. That description of their headway only counts, however, if you don’t consider the icy rock material hanging out in the Oort Cloud that surrounds the sun and the planets, and will take many more years to travel through, part of the solar system.
It will be a long time before we can see our entire galaxy all at once, looking down on it from above. But until then, we have some pretty spectacular views from its different neighborhoods.
A core issue
Stars are crowded into the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Photo: NASA/JPL
More:
http://www.ibtimes.com/4-nasa-photos-show-stunning-views-milky-way-galaxy-2612950