Today's paper had an article from the AP on a presentation made at the AAS meeting. It explains how x-ray pictures give a detailed view of the center of our galaxy.

In the AP article, there is what I think is a bad graphic. The graphic shows the Earth being in a spiral arm and the caption says "On Earth, the dense galactic center is visible as the band across the night sky that gives the Milky Way its name."

I think it should say that the visible Milky Way we see is the spiral arms of the galaxy (the dense galactic center is not visible).

That's right. You need infrared or radio to see the galactic center. (Other frequencies might work as well, but definitely not visible light.)

_________________
"... to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson, Ulysses

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ToSeek on 2002-01-10 14:21 ]</font>

Hey, do you have a link to the article, or the author's name? I know a few of the press folks at the meeting, and I'm curious. Thanks!

Paul Recer. Do you know him?

_________________
"... to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson, Ulysses

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: ToSeek on 2002-01-10 15:13 ]</font>

I read the article in a regular newspaper.

I didn't register with AP so did not see the article on their site, but one newspaper that carried it on the web:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/nation..._space10.shtml

does not have the graphic that I referred to. So it is not clear to me who created the graphic or when it was added.