We’ve never actually seen the Milky Way’s spiral shape from the outside.Why? Because we’re inside it! Our solar system is located within one of the galaxy’s spiral arms, so we can only observe parts of the Milky Way from our perspective on Earth. The iconic spiral images you see are artist’s impressions or computer models based on indirect observations like star distribution, radio waves, and cosmic mapping techniques. So, while we understand its general shape, no spacecraft has ever traveled fa