Planets of the Morning
Planet Earth's horizon stretches across this
recent Solar System group portrait, seen from
the southern hemisphere's Las Campanas Observatory.
Taken before dawn it
traces
the ecliptic with
a line-up familiar to November's early morning risers.
Toward the east are bright planets Venus, Mars, and
Jupiter as well as Regulus, alpha star of the constellation Leo.
Of course
the planets are immersed in the faint glow of zodiacal
light, visible from the dark site rising at an angle from the
horizon.
Sometimes known as the false dawn, it's
no accident the zodiacal light
and planets both lie
along the
ecliptic.
Formed in the flattened
protoplanetary disk,
the Solar System's planets all orbit near the ecliptic plane,
while dust near the plane scatters sunlight, the
source of the faint
zodiacal glow.