Would we ever be able to take a picture of the Milky Way Galaxy from the outside beyond its halo?
2007-02-05 02:56:05 · 13 answers · asked by Fibonacci01123 3 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Astronomy & Space
Sure -- but it'll take a long time.
Look at it this way: remember Voyager, the probe we launched in 1972 that made the grand tour of the solar system, sending back incredible pictures of Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune? It's going about 75,000 miles per hour -- and has been doing so for over 30 years. It has just recently reached the "heliopause" -- the edge of our solar system where our sun's influence is no longer felt. It took it 30 years just to leave our solar system, it would take another few thousand years just to reach another star system. To get outside our galaxy will take it hundreds of thousands of years.
Space is very, very big :)
2007-02-05 03:32:35 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
"beyond its halo" means about 100,000 lightyears, so if the speed of light is the limit, you've got to wait 100,000 years at least. As cogplasma points out, we can synthesize a picture of the Milky Way in a computer, based on astronomical data.
2007-02-05 03:38:31 · answer #2 · answered by cosmo 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The shortest route out of the Milky Way from our position in it would be "up" away from the spiral arm we're in. No one is absolutely certain of that distance, but it's on the order of 15,000 light years. So, if we could attain a velocity very near that of light it would take more than 15,000 years to leave our galaxy mostly behind us.
2007-02-05 03:10:06 · answer #3 · answered by Chug-a-Lug 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
It depends on how fast you travel. The Milky Way is about 100,000 light years wide and about 10,000 light years thick. At the speed of light it would take 100,000 years to travel 100,000 light years. The fastest space craft ever (see the source) is leaving the solar system about 15,000 times slower than light. At that speed it would take 1,500,000,000 years. That is 1.5 billion years.
2007-02-05 03:40:06 · answer #4 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are already composite pictures that are from a view from outside the galaxy, made from a bunch of different images or something. I think that since the shape of the galaxy is know they can digitally put together a picture of what it looks like from different perspectives
2007-02-05 03:12:49 · answer #5 · answered by cogplasma 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
At close to the speed of light, about 25 million years. this is because the Milky Way is 100 million light years in "diameter", but we are not in the center - more toward the outer rim, nearly 30 million light years from the center.
2007-02-05 03:09:22 · answer #6 · answered by DinDjinn 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Not in all practicality. Wormholes are just fun theoretical things to play with and quantum tunneling happens at atomic scales and not at a practical dimension. It's highly unlikely we'll make it. We just launched a probe to Pluto that's taking 10 years to get there. Compare that to galactic distances and you'll get a feel for the difficulty.
2007-02-05 03:07:04 · answer #7 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
you would need to travel at least 60 000 light-years away to see the whole galaxy. the length of time it takes to get there would depend on the speed that you go. even if you traveled 10 000 times the speed of light (299792.5 km/s) it would take you 60 years.
2007-02-05 03:13:31 · answer #8 · answered by Belru Tytor 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Depending on the method... WormHoles would offer the fastest transpertaion.... The US Airforce has and is still studying that technology..
I believe there was one article I read that mentioned quantum tunneling(whatever that is) and that it alows travel 5 times faster then the speed of light....
2007-02-05 03:00:37 · answer #9 · answered by jack 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not with conventional rockets.
You'd need to go many, many times the speed of light to do it in any reasonable timeframe.
2007-02-05 02:59:32 · answer #10 · answered by substance_of_desire 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋