We Can See The Milky Way from the Outside

The universe is big. Really big. In fact, it is Infinite. There is no end to how big, or how small, a given mass can be when compared to another mass.

The force of gravity is a function of mass, and as that mass approaches what is perceivable as infinite, then its influence on all other objects around it is immense.

This produces optical illusions in how we see our "observable universe."

While we have assumed that light from distant galaxies travels generally in a straight line to reach Earth, this is not the case. Instead, objects such as the Great Attractor are so massive that they gravitationally lens all light in our observable universe.

This produces optical illusions of where galaxies appear to be positioned in space.

In reality, this gravitational lensing effect causes light to travel not in a straight line but rather in a Figure-8 orbital pattern.

This Figure-8 orbital pattern, notably, produces electromagnetism as a result of gravity. But that is not the focus of this post.

Rather, an interesting result of this gravitational lensing is that light from the Milky Way, millions and even billions of years ago, was emitted and then began to be gravitationally lensed by the Great Attractor in this Figure-8 pattern. And after traveling in this way for millions or billions of years, it then reaches Earth and we see it.

And so, as a result of this, it produces an optical illusion where many of the distant galaxies that we think are other galaxies are actually the Milky Way galaxy, in a time distant past. The light was emitted at just the right angle (not very hard for it to do since it is emitted in all directions) so that it arrives at the exact position of Earth millions or billions of years later for us to then observe it after it has traveled in this Figure-8 orbital.

This is how all distant redshifted galaxies is produced by gravitational redshift, due to the Figure-8 orbital of light, and not by motion. "Expansion of space" and "Dark Energy" are both misinterpretations stemming from the assumption that our redshift observations are due to motion, as we assumed Doppler shift was the cause due to lack of awareness of this Figure-8 orbital pattern produced by sufficiently large masses.

Which ones are they? I don't know. But they are out there, waiting to be recognized for what they are: our Milky Way galaxy, at various times in distant past.