Why is it difficult to map the Milky Way's structure using only visible light?
Answer
Massive amounts of intervening gas and dust absorb and scatter visible light, obscuring the view beyond a few thousand light-years.
Visible light has a short wavelength, making it ineffective at penetrating the thick dust lanes within the galactic plane, which severely limits how far astronomers can see toward the core.
Related Questions
What causes the Milky Way to appear as a faint, glowing band when viewed from Earth?Why is it difficult to map the Milky Way's structure using only visible light?What primary observational tools are necessary to pierce the dust barrier and map the galaxy?What specific feature do astronomers target using radio astronomy to map the distribution of gas clouds?What is the role of the Doppler effect in constructing a three-dimensional map of the spiral arms?Where is the Solar System located relative to the galactic center and the major features?What structural feature distinguishes the Milky Way as a 'barred spiral galaxy'?How do astronomers confirm the internal findings about the Milky Way's overall shape?What specific structural detail of the galactic bulge has been clarified using X-ray data?What makes the definition of where spiral arms begin and end often fuzzy in scientific models?