Chilean Skyscape

As seen on Astronomy Picture of the Day, night skies over Chilean mountain top observatories can be dark and clear, with glorious cosmic vistas. In this example, the plane of our Milky Way galaxy stretches parallel to the horizon, the galactic center’s star clusters, dark dust clouds, and glowing nebulae hovering in the west. Recorded after sunset, the wedge of light extending upward through the scene is Zodiacal light, sunlight scattered by dust along the solar system’s ecliptic plane. A faint meteor was also caught in the view, but approaching a conjunction, brilliant Venus and bright Jupiter dominate the skyscape.