Zodiacal Light over Paranal Observatory in Chile | ESO
The zodiacal light—also called “false dawn” when seen before sunrise—is a faint, diffuse band of light in the night sky, reaching up from the horizon. It follows the direction of the ecliptic—the plane of Earth's orbit around the Sun. This plane is rich in tiny particles of dust. It scatters sunlight and creates this phenomenon. The other planets in the Solar System orbit the Sun in roughly the same plane, and therefore can be often seen within the zodiacal light. In this particular image, Venus is the brightest source and Mars is the faint, reddish dot to the upper-right of Venus.
If you have never seen zodiacal light before, you are not alone. The glow is so faint that light pollution or even moonlight can outshine it. Luckily, the Atacama Desert still preserves the full glory of its night skies, a heritage to be protected. How appropriate also that the VLT Unit Telescope enjoying this spectacle of sunlight in the image is the one nicknamed Antu. In the Mapudungun language of central-southern Chile, it means “The Sun”.
Image Description: A fisheye-lense photograph of a telescope against the night sky. The telescope, a light-grey cylindrical structure, takes up the right half of the image. Behind it, the sky is washed in shades of dark blue, green, pink and orange, dotted with thousands of small white and bluish stars. A blue light stretches across the sky towards the bottom left of the image. The bottom third of the image is taken up by the ground, covered in gravel and crossed by a grey walkway.
Credit: D. Gasparri/European Southern Observatory (ESO)
Release Date: July 29, 2024
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