What major characteristic of the Milky Way was revealed by the telescope?

Answer

It resolved into countless individual stars

Prior to the use of the telescope, the Milky Way appeared to the unaided human eye as an indistinct, uniform, and hazy band of light stretching across the night sky. This lack of resolution led observers to believe it was some sort of pervasive, faint celestial material. Galileo's instrument, however, possessed sufficient light-gathering power and resolution to dissect this band. The observation revealed that the Milky Way was not a continuous cloud but rather an immense concentration of an astronomical number of individual, distinct stars, far too numerous to count individually. This finding profoundly impacted cosmological understanding by suggesting that the visible universe was vastly more populous and spatially extended than previously conceived under the old, finite models.

What major characteristic of the Milky Way was revealed by the telescope?

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