A former NASA analyst on TikTok has explained the (hopefully obvious) reason why photographs of our galaxy – the Milky Way – are not real. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

Responding to the question "How do we take pictures of the Milky Way if we are in it?", science communicator and former NASA space analyst Alexandra Doten explained that we simply do not have pictures of the Milky Way.

"Every full image you see of the Milky Way is an illustration," Doten explained in the video (see below).

"We cannot see the Milky Way like this, and I don't think humans ever will," she added.

The reason for this is quite simple: we have never been able to view the Milky Way from any other vantage point than the edge of a spiral a

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