                        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.

                                2022 March 15

                             A Road to the Stars
   Image Credit: ESO, Petr Horálek (ESO Photo Ambassador, Inst. of Physics
                                  in Opava)

   Explanation: Pictured -- a very scenic road to the stars. The road
   approaches La Silla Observatory in Chile, with the ESO's 3.6-meter
   telescope just up ahead. To the left are some futuristic-looking
   support structures for the planned BlackGEM telescopes, an array of
   optical telescopes that will help locate optical counterparts to
   gravitational waves detections by LIGO and other detectors. But there
   is much more. Red airglow illuminates the night sky on the right, while
   the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy slants across the image
   center. Jupiter can be seen just above the band near the image center,
   while Saturn is visible just above the 3.6-meter telescope dome. The
   two largest satellite galaxies of our Milky Way Galaxy, the LMC and
   SMC, are seen on the far right. The featured image panorama was built
   up from multiple 15-second exposures that were captured on 2019 June
   30. Two days later, La Silla experienced a rare total eclipse of the
   Sun.

                Tomorrow's picture: the universe, illustrated
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

