Our Galaxy "The Milky Way" a new question

The facts that we know, or think we know are that: when we look out into space we are looking backward into time. Why because the distances are so vast and that light takes a long time to travel between stars. The light from the sun is 8 seconds old when it reaches Earth. The light from Jupiter and Saturn and the outer planets is minutes old when it reaches us.

Scientists would like us to believe that light travelling through the Universe bends due to the gravity effects of galactic clusters and dark matter, so here for the scientists is a new thought.

If in looking out into space, though Hubble or some other technology, how would we know whether or not we were looking at our own galaxy sometime in the past.

We would not recognise our own sun, nor would we recognise our own Solar system which was probably different in structure several billion years ago. Our planets would not necessarily have the same number of moons, and their distance from the sun would be influenced by the effects of gravity within the solar system and by the effects of gravity outisde our solar system.

Would our Galaxy still be the same shape 8 billion years ago, or 4 billion years ago, compared to its current shape and existence. The further out we look the farther back in time we look. The question being, would we recognise our own galaxy if we saw it?

Man has had such a short time in the Universe, we are arrogant to assume we would recognise an earlier version of our galaxy in a Universe we don't understand!!!