Read both links and then ponder the last question I ask.

If you were born in a house and never stuck you head out a window or a door, and you lived your whole life in that house, how would you know what the outside of that house looked like?

So, how do we know what the Milky Way looks like if we are part of it?

Here is a possible answer: ( It is a long, but, fascinating read)
http://viewzone2.com/milkywayx.html


http://www.space.com/18743-voyager-spacecraft-solar-system-edge.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+spaceheadlines+%28SPACE.com+Headline+Feed%29&utm_content=My+Yahoo

Voyager 1 is on the brink of escaping the solar system. Is it just a COINCIDENCE that if the first link is correct and our solar system enters the plain of the Milky Way Galaxy on December 21st that we have a spacecraft positioned very nicely to send back useful scientific data to us in advance of the planets of our solar system actually hitting the plain?

I think we have been lied to. I think the governments of this world have known for a very long time that we are not yet part of the Milky Way. And I think they know that it will be a bumpy ride, ( for 7 years), if we even just merely pass through the plain and go around again.

We do look out the window, think Hubble, etc.

If we were in the Milky Way Galaxy, then how could we see the outside of it? The Hubble, while outside Earths atmosphere, is still supposedly, inside the Milky Way.

Edited to add: Read the first link. It makes some very interesting claims. I know you haven't read the whole thing yet. It takes a couple of hours to read and then digest.

Billy, I think it's pretty safe to say we're in the Milky Way galaxy... Know how I know???

We named the damn thing...

So, we are in Andromeda Galaxy and any of a million galaxies that we have named.

How does that even make sense? Did we ever name our galaxy the Andromeda Galaxy?

My point is, we named the galaxy WE live in the Milky Way.

We have named a billion things. Just because we name it, doesn't mean we live in it. I understand you referring to the Milky Way. I was simply pointing out that we have named more Galaxies than just the Milky Way. We didn't give the Milky Way a name just because it's our home.

Galaxies collide and form bigger galaxies. Nothing in that link is new. We're part of the milky way galaxy now. It doesn't matter if we were in the Saggitarius Galaxy in the past, because if we were, we've been sucked in. In about 12 billion years, the Andromeda Galaxy and Milky Way galaxies are on path to collide. During collisions, not all stars survive, so who knows what will happen.

As to the link's claim that "the rest of the milky way is at a weird angle" hypothesis is out there. We're a newer star, so we're on the outer edges. The gravity isn't strong enough to force our planets to rotate in the same direction as those closest to the massive black hole in the center. We're not a ring. You could rotate the directions of all the planets to match, or be like we are now and be angled and still travel in the same direction without proving anything.

As to how they can tell... it's physics. Measuring distance of stars isn't hard based on brightness of a star, so they can map every visible star and then form the larger map to show how we fit into the equation. Hubble has opened up a lot, but the one that launched earlier this year will show be able to see even further out and with much more detail.

I think there may be some confusion, because we may see partial pictures of the Milky Way, or examples of similar spiral galaxies or artist renderings of it that are not actual pictures.

Scientists acknowledge that we don't know what the Milky Way looks like from the outside:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10385928/ns ... milky-way/
http://www.scientificamerican.com/artic ... sts-determ

Look at it this way: the Milky Way is where we live. We Earthlings are not in the main house, but we still basically reside on the same property - in one of the many guest houses, out by the road. We can take a picture of most of the property from where we stand, and it might even look like an entire property. But it is not. Because it is immense, and there are a log of things out with us along the edge. It looks like we are far away from the main house - and we are. But to inhabitants of other galaxies observing us, we look like part of the whole - on the edge, but still part of the property.

This is a cool site: http://www.atlasoftheuniverse.com/galaxy.html