Astronomy relation?

Question

Can one learn about the structure of something of which one is a small part of the structure and cannot travel far from their home location? If you lived in an apartment but could only look out the windows (and what if every wall of your room does not have a window and you cannot leave the room), how could you tell if you were in the center of a city, town, village or in the middle of "nowhere" or in the "transition region" between the combination of any of the above? You cannot 'make' a window by knocking a hole in the windowless wall...

I need a connection to the structure and our location in the Milky Way Galaxy

Answer 1

Assuming you could never open a window or knock a hole in the wall, you would at the very least become extremely familiar with the area you COULD survey: your apartment. If you lived in a city you might be able to hear traffic outside or noise from the apartments above and below, and thereby surmise there were other things outside your apartment.

So you have your tiny living space, with which you are pretty familiar after exhaustively studying every wall, crevice, and sofa, but you're still able to find new and exciting things every now and then. Cobwebs might form in the corner and you have no idea why until you can study them. The sink might leak and, without the proper knowledge or tools, you may never find out how or why. And on top of those mysteries in your apartment you're still fascinated by the traffic and noises that come from beyond your vision.

That's a pretty straight parallel to our situation: we have a definite understanding of our solar system and galaxy, but we're perplexed by it and discovering new things about it and new things about the way we THOUGHT it behaved all the time. And simultaneously there is this huge nigh-infinite expanse of space that we can glean only the (relatively) tiniest bits of information about. And we're fascinated by that. It's human nature.

Answer 2

One clue would be to observe traffic patterns throughout the day. If everyone is heading south in the morning and north in the evening you could surmise that you're somewhere north of the center. With a galaxy, the analogous method is even better, because the relationship of orbital speed to distance can indicate both the location of the center and the mass of the galaxy.

(I am assuming you meant to say "not every wall has a window", and not that there are no windows.)

Answer 3

Astronomy is different. We CAN see in all directions. There are no walls without windows. On Earth you can only see as far as the horizon, but in space there is no horizon, you can see all the way across the galaxy and farther. And unlike a city, the galaxy is 99.99% empty space. You can see right through it in most directions. You could draw a straight line from Earth that passed through the center of the galaxy without ever passing through a star, because the stars are so small compared to the distances between them. In some directions there are large dust clouds that are hard to see through in visible light, but infrared or radio telescopes can see right through it!

Answer 4

I would like to take you away from this perception and give you a different one. Our eyes only see what is in front of us. Often it is a misguided perception. To truly see where you are, wether it be in a room, on an ocean, lost in space, or the tinny speck of our existence in this universe, you must close your eyes. If you study and practice the varied processes of meditation, you will soon see and never lose your way.