The Privileged Planet
NARRATION GUILLERMO GONZALEZ AND JAY RICHARDS HAVE CONDUCTED RESEARCH ON ANOTHER FACET OF THE GALACTIC HABITABLE ZONE.
THEY NOW ARGUE THAT THE EARTH IS ALSO LOCATED IN THE BEST SETTING WITHIN OUR GALAXY FOR ASTRONOMICAL RESEARCH.
GUILLERMO GONZALEZ "As it turns out, our position in the universe is not only critical for life but it's also surprisingly important for making scientific discoveries."
We're located near the mid-plane of the galaxy, a fairly highly flattened galaxy, between spiral arms in the region with very low dust extinction. While we are in the plane in the galaxy, that does not obscure a large part of the sky so we can have very clear views.
NARRATION FOR MORE THAN A CENTURY, THIS NEARLY IDEAL PLATFORM OF OBSERVATION HAS ENABLED ASTRONOMERS TO STUDY THE STRUCTURE OF THE MILKY WAY.
LOOKING TOWARD THE CONSTELLATION SAGITTARIUS ON A CLEAR NIGHT, FOR EXAMPLE, WE SEE THAT THE STARS IN OUR GALAXY ARE NOT UNIFORMLY DISTRIBUTED ACROSS THE SKY.
INSTEAD, THEY APPEAR AS PART OF A CONCENTRATED BAND --A FLATTENED DISK OF STARS, DUST, AND GAS 100 THOUSAND LIGHT YEARS IN DIAMETER.
GUILLERMO GONZALEZ "The Milky Way band in the night sky is us looking edge on into the plane of the galaxy."
"If we were living in the center of the galaxy things would be much more spherically distributed, so it would be very hard to distinguish things inside the galaxy from things that are outside."
"It's also very dusty…much dustier toward the galactic center than it is in our region. And so, views of the distant universe would be much more difficult to obtain. They would be much more compromised."
NARRATION SIMILAR PROBLEMS WOULD EXIST FOR ASTRONOMERS WORKING ON A PLANET LOCATED WITHIN ANY OF THE GALAXY'S SPIRAL ARMS.
HERE, DENSER CONCENTRATIONS OF DUST CLOUDS AND GAS ILLUMINATED BY STARS WOULD MAKE IT DIFFICULT TO DETERMINE THE SHAPE OF THE MILKY WAY …OR TO DISTINGUISH THE STARS IN OUR GALAXY FROM THE REST OF THE UNIVERSE.
JAY RICHARDS "On the surface of the Earth, we're really in the optimum position for seeing both the nearby structure of the Milky Way galaxy, as well as seeing the distant cosmos, as a whole.
So, once again, we see that best location for habitability and for producing a habitable planet is also the best overall position in the universe for scientific discovery. In this case, at the galactic scale."
"The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible." Albert Einstein
Looks busy in the center.
It is a beautiful image to behold but can space have width without depth? The spectrum you view does not occur at the same distance.
“Spitzer’s Milky Way”
Don’t want to got here..
Nice pic.
read later
Are those two large objects on each extreme side of the full width picture the Magellanic Clouds?