                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                 2021 July 3

                             Along the Milky Way
                  Image Credit & Copyright: Rolf Weisenfeld

   Explanation: You can't walk along the Milky Way. Still, under a dark
   sky you can explore it. To the eye the pale luminous trail of light
   arcing through the sky on a dark, moonless night does appear to be a
   path through the heavens. The glowing celestial band is the faint,
   collective light of distant stars cut by swaths of obscuring
   interstellar dust clouds. It lies along the plane of our home galaxy,
   so named because it looks like a milky way. Since Galileo's time, the
   Milky Way has been revealed to telescopic skygazers to be filled with
   congeries of innumerable stars and cosmic wonders.

                       Tomorrow's picture: Facing Mars
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.

