Why is resolving fine structural details within a galaxy billions of light-years away exceptionally difficult?
Answer
The galaxy subtends an extremely tiny angle in the sky due to cosmological distances.
Angular resolution, the ability to distinguish between two closely spaced points, is severely limited when viewing objects at cosmological distances. Even massive galaxies, like the Milky Way, subtend an angle so small in the sky that their internal structures—such as spiral arms or star-forming clumps—appear smeared together. While techniques like adaptive optics or space telescopes mitigate atmospheric blurring, the fundamental geometric limitation imposed by the extreme angular size makes resolving fine internal morphology nearly impossible.
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