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Astro-noob here. Why can't we get better pictures from our telescopes, given that we can take what seems to be high quality pictures of things much further away
by frikk 11y ago
Astro-noob here. Why can't we get better pictures from our telescopes, given that we can take what seems to be high quality pictures of things much further away? Is it because of how "small" pluto is, versus say a large galaxy or nebula.
- aperiodic 11y agoIt is exactly that: Pluto is a very tiny astronomical object. Galaxies, nebulae, and such are much further away than Pluto, but that is more than made up for by how mind-boggingly large they are. For example, The Andromeda Galaxy is about six full moons wide as viewed from Earth[1]. [1]: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/01/moon_and_andromeda_relative_size_in_the_sky.html http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2014/01/01/moon_and...
- imh 11y agoIt's amazing. It almost makes me feel sick to realize how large it would appear, despite how unimaginably far away it is. It simply does not compute.
- IndianAstronaut 11y agoThere are an estimated 1 trillion stars in the Andromeda galaxy.
- TheOtherHobbes 11y agoIt's kind of a shame humanity evolved in one of the spiral arms of the Milky Way. If we'd evolved in one of the Magellanic Clouds, we'd see an astounding squashed spiral view of this galaxy with direct line of sight of the bright nucleus.
- JupiterMoon 11y agoMeanwhile if there are life forms in Magellanic Clouds they are probably looking at the spiral arms thinking that it is a shame that they did not evolve in a galaxy proper...
- justin66 11y agoSomeone else mentioned the relative size but also the other stuff you're thinking of emits its own light. Plato is just a rock.