How to Map a Galaxy When You’re Right in the Middle of It
The T-shirts and posters are common: an image of a galaxy, an arrow pointing to a spot in that galaxy, and a sign reading “You are here.”
But it’s all a big lie. That’s not the Milky Way, and we are not there. We have no images of our galactic home from the outside for a simple reason: We cannot travel that far. But the image isn’t wholly wrong (so long as it shows the galaxy with spiral arms, which not all versions do). We do live in a spiral galaxy, and our Sun orbits the center of
