Arc Above the Arches

In this panoramic view the magnificent Milky Way arches over the spectacular Arches National Park in Utah, USA. In the sky captured above “The Windows” area of the park, the summer stars set in the west (left) while the winter stars clime up in the east (right). As noted by the photographer “Orion and Sirius were rising in the East, Northern Cross and Vega were setting in West and a host of beautiful winter constellations in between like Gemini, Taurus, the Pleiades, … Note the spooky Halloween eyes of the Windows Arch!” The Arches National Park is home to over 2,000 natural sandstone arches. The park lies atop an underground salt bed, which caused the formation of the arches, sandstone fins, and enormous monoliths in the area. The salt bed was deposited over the Colorado Plateau around 300 million years ago when a sea flowed into the region and eventually evaporated. Over countless millennia, the erosive forces of water and wind have shaped the geologic wonderland we see today at Arches.