# Please answer my dumb astronomy question? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 5, 2004, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130 "2004-11-05T03:59:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pohjonen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pohjonen/32/423_2.png) [@pohjonen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pohjonen)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130/1 "2004-11-05T03:59:31Z")
I was wondering how come we can’t see the center of our galaxy. Pictures of other spiral galaxies seem to have dense bright centers, and if we’re hanging out on one of the spiral bands, it would seem like we would see alot of light if we stood on earth and looked toward the center of the Milky Way. Do those bright dense centers only look that way from immense distances? ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130/2 "2004-11-05T04:02:52Z")
We can see it. It’s the Milky Way. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 4:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130/3 "2004-11-05T04:04:06Z")
Forget about my previous post. I didn’t pay enough attention to your question. ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130/4 "2004-11-05T04:15:01Z")
Well, **clairobscur** , your answer wasn’t _entirely_ wrong. The Milky Way is in fact denser in the (Northern hemisphere) summer sky, when we look toward the center of the galaxy. However, we don’t see the _really_ bright galactic center because of intervening gas and dust. We can’t see the forest for the trees. Or maybe a better analogy would be, we can’t see the forest because of patchy ground fog. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 4:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130/5 "2004-11-05T04:16:18Z")
You can see the center. Here’s a picture: [http://www.allthesky.com/nebulae/big/mwop-b.jpg](http://www.allthesky.com/nebulae/big/mwop-b.jpg) What is messing up what you expect to see are intervening dust clouds (fairly obvious) but you can make out the central galactic bulge in the picture with only a little imagination. Here is a picture of the galaxy in the infrared spectrum that shows the central bulge a bit better. The dust clouds do not block this wavelength as completely as it does visible light. [http://www.seds.org/messier/Pics/More/mw-cobe.jpg](http://www.seds.org/messier/Pics/More/mw-cobe.jpg) ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130/6 "2004-11-05T04:18:06Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > You can see the center. Here’s a picture: [http://www.allthesky.com/nebulae/big/mwop-b.jpg](http://www.allthesky.com/nebulae/big/mwop-b.jpg) > > What is messing up what you expect to see are intervening dust clouds (fairly obvious)… I mean “fairly obvious” in that you can see it in the picture. Not that it is “fairly obvious” as in everyone should know that. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 5, 2004, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-answer-my-dumb-astronomy-question/273130/7 "2004-11-05T04:19:28Z")
There’s too much dust in the way to see the center of the milky way with [visible](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap990911.html) light.You can see it better at [X-Ray](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020110.html), [Infrared](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010708.html) and [Radio](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020803.html) frequencies. Here’s an infrared closeup of the [innermost lightyear](http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021018.html) of the Milky way, including the location of its’ 2 million solar-mass black hole.