                        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.

                                 2023 May 12

                    Halley Dust, Mars Dust, and Milky Way
   Image Credit & Copyright: Petr Horalek / Institute of Physics in Opava

   Explanation: Grains of cosmic dust streaked through night skies in
   early May. Swept up as planet Earth plowed through the debris streams
   left behind by periodic Comet Halley, the annual meteor shower is known
   as the Eta Aquarids. This year, the Eta Aquarids peak was visually
   hampered by May's bright Full Moon, though. But early morning hours
   surrounding last May's shower of Halley dust were free of moonlight
   interference. In exposures recorded between April 28 and May 8 in 2022,
   this composited image shows nearly 90 Eta Aquarid meteors streaking
   from the shower's radiant in Aquarius over San Pedro de Atacama, Chile.
   The central Milky Way arcs above in the southern hemisphere's predawn
   skies. The faint band of light rising from the horizon is Zodiacal
   light, caused by dust scattering sunlight near our Solar System's
   ecliptic plane. Along the ecliptic and entrained in the Zodiacal glow
   are the bright planets Venus, Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn. Of course Mars
   itself has recently been found to be a likely source of the dust along
   the ecliptic responsible for creating Zodiacal light.

                   Tomorrow's picture: The Crescent Earth
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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