The Central Milky Way from Lagoon to Pipe
1.10.2021

Dark markings and colorful clouds inhabit this stellar landscape. The deep and expansive view spans more than 30 full moons across crowded star fields toward the center of our Milky Way Galaxy. Cataloged in the early 20th century by astronomer E. E.

Milky Way over French Alp Hoodoos
16.05.2022

Real castles aren't this old. And the background galaxy is even older. Looking a bit like an alien castle, the pictured rock spires are called hoodoos and are likely millions of years old. Rare, but found around the world, hoodoos form when dense rocks slow the erosion of softer rock underneath.

Milky Way Motion in 3D from Gaia
6.07.2022

Our sky is alive with the streams of stars. The motions of 26 million Milky Way stars are evident in the featured map constructed from recent data taken by ESA's Gaia satellite. Stars colored blue are moving toward us, while red indicates away. Lines depict the motion of the stars across the sky.

Galaxy in a Crystal Ball
22.06.2018

A small crystal ball seems to hold a whole galaxy in this creative snapshot. Of course, the galaxy is our own Milky Way. Its luminous central bulge marked by rifts of interstellar dust spans thousands of light-years. On this long southern hemisphere night it filled dark Chilean skies over Paranal Observatory.

Firefly Milky Way over Russia
6.09.2021

It started with a pine tree. The idea was to photograph a statuesque pine in front of the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy. And the plan, carried out two months ago, was successful -- they both appear prominently. But the resulting 3-frame panorama captured much more.

Framed by Trees: A Window to the Galaxy
19.07.2021

The photographer had this shot in mind for some time. He knew that objects overhead are the brightest -- since their light is scattered the least by atmospheric air. He also that knew the core of our Milky Way Galaxy was just about straight up near midnight around this time of year in South Australia.

Stargate Milky Way
17.08.2022

There is a huge gate of stars in the sky, and you pass through it twice a day. The stargate is actually our Milky Way Galaxy, and it is the spin of the Earth that appears to propel you through it.

Milky Way over Chilean Volcanoes
21.08.2017

Sometimes, the sky mimics the ground. Taken in 2017 May from the Atacama Desert in Chile, the foreground of the featured image encompasses the dipping edge of the caldera of an extinct volcano. Poetically echoing the dip below is the arch of our Milky Way Galaxy above.

100 Steps Forward
15.09.2017

A beautiful conjunction of Venus and Moon, human, sand, and Milky Way is depicted in this night skyscape from planet Earth. The scene is a panorama of 6 photos taken in a moment near the end of a journey.

Gaia's Milky Way
27.04.2018

This grand allsky view of our Milky Way and nearby galaxies is not a photograph. It's a map based on individual measurements for nearly 1.7 billion stars. The astronomically rich data set used...