Different Descriptions

Poul Anderson often:

describes natural scenery;

does so by appealing to at least three of the senses;

describes the Milky Way, usually as seen from space but sometimes also as seen from a planetary surface.

Other authors might:

describe scenery in completely different terms from Anderson, appealing only to sight;

describe the night sky again in completely different terms and without referring to or naming the Milky Way.

"The Milky Way" meant a patch of light in the night sky. Then it was learned first that our sun is one star in a galaxy and secondly that that patch of light is the disc of our galaxy as seen from some parts of the Earth's surface. Thus, "the Milky Way" became the name of our galaxy.

Since other galaxies were recognized as such only in 1925, the year before Poul Anderson's birth (see Significant Dates), literary references to the Milky Way understood as a galaxy are very recent and form part of the perspective of modern sf writers even when they appear in non-sf works.