Emu in the Sky
The Milky Way is a galaxy; a galaxy is a huge collection of stars, solar systems, gas and dust, all held together by gravity. There are billions (maybe trillions) of galaxies in the (one) Universe. The Milky Way is a disk-shaped spiral galaxy, with a massive black hole at the centre, and it is our galactic home.
Question: What do you see when you gaze at the Milky Way in our night sky?
Like many questions in life, the answer depends on your perspective, or point of view.
Image#1 is an imagined view of the Milky Way looking from the outside in. We can never see it like this because we are on the inside of the Milky Way, and cannot get far enough away from it to take a photo. So this image is an artist’s rendition based on our observations of other similar galaxies.
Image#2 is a photo of what we can see of the Milky Way from our position within it, which is about halfway out between the centre and the outer edge of the spiral. So we are looking back through the spiral disc, and we see it “side-on” from the inside.
Image#3 is a marked-up image of how our indigenous astronomers see the Milky Way. Many Aboriginal nations have “Emu in the Sky’ stories, and its changing position in the sky indicates the timing of available food sources on country.
Here in Sandy Point we are fortunate to have ‘dark sky’ opportunities to view the Milky Way, away from the light pollution of other towns (while humming The Church song). The Sandy Point Community Group supports the maintenance of our low light pollution status.
You can read this and previous Dark Sky Sandy Point articles at www.sandypoint.vic.au/news/tag/Dark+Sky