Observing the Cosmic Ladder - The Milky Way, Our Home
You’ve probably heard the Milky Way mentioned many times. You also probably have some understanding of it being our own galaxy. But did you know that it’s by far the largest target in the entire night sky?
We inhabit a lonely arm towards the outskirts of the Milky Way (see graphic). What this means is that from our perspective, all of the stars and rich star fields surrounding us all belong to the Milky Way, which is essentially the entire night sky. However our galaxy rotates in a plane, somewhat similar to how the planets revolve around the Sun in a plane, which means we view the plane of the galaxy edge-on as it wraps around Earth’s sky. This causes the Milky Way to appear as a dense vein of stars so numerous it looks like a diffuse cloud of innumerable stars.
Astronomers distinguish the closest foreground stars with individual names or designations in specific constellations (see yesterday’s post), and refer to the background concentration of stars in the galactic plane behind as regions of the Milky Way. These regions are of course still stars, but resolving and naming each one is somewhat like trying to use the Hubble Space Telescope to resolve and label individual grains of sand on Earth, instead we call concentrated regions of sand merely “beaches” for the sake of simplicity.
To see the Milky Way in summer, find the darkest site you can find on a moonless night (or after it’s already set) and wait at least 20 minutes for your eyes to fully adapt, and you’ll see the glowing band arcing across the sky, crossing the southern horizon.
Join us Wednesday 9/2 @ 6:00 PM for another virtual event on the space program “Apollo: Getting Home.” Email LBmartin@cityofwestminster.us to register for this free virtual program.
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Stay well, and clear skies!