Question

What is the Milky Way? Understand how redenning and extinction make it hard to observe in the galactic plane?

Answer 1

The Milky Way is a band of faint white light that stretches across the sky. Reddenning and extinction make it challenging to observe in the galactic plane due to the blocking, scattering, and absorption of light by interstellar dust and gas.

Step-by-step explanation:

The Milky Way is the arm of our galaxy of stars that stretches across the sky like a band of faint white light. It is called the Milky Way because it resembles spilled milk. However, observing the Milky Way in the galactic plane can be challenging due to two factors: redenning and extinction.

Redenning: This is the process where interstellar dust blocks and scatters the light coming from stars. This causes the light to appear redder and reduces the overall brightness of the Milky Way. As a result, only the brightest stars and objects within the Milky Way are visible.

Extinction: Extinction is the absorption and scattering of light by interstellar dust and gas. The dust and gas in the galactic plane obstruct the light coming from distant stars and galaxies, making them harder to observe. The extinction is particularly significant for shorter wavelengths of light like ultraviolet and blue, which are scattered and absorbed more easily.

Answer 2

The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. It's a barred spiral galaxy with a diameter between 150,000 and 200,000 light-years.

Reddening and extinction are two phenomena that make it difficult to observe objects in the galactic plane of the Milky Way.

Reddening is the process by which dust in the interstellar medium absorbs and scatters short-wavelength (blue) light to a greater degree than long-wavelength (red) light. This causes distant stars and galaxies to appear redder than they actually are.

Extinction, on the other hand, is the overall dimming of light from a star or other celestial object as it passes through the interstellar medium. This is caused by both the absorption of light by dust and gas, and the scattering of light out of the line of sight.

Both reddening and extinction make it difficult to observe the galactic plane because they obscure and distort the light from stars and other objects in that region.

Step-by-step explanation: