Milky Way above La Palma Observatory
Image Credit & Copyright:
Marcin Rosadziński
What's happening in the night sky?
To help find out, telescopes all over the globe will be
pointing into deep space.
Investigations will include trying to understand the
early universe, finding and tracking
Earth-menacing asteroids,
searching for
planets that might contain extra-terrestrial life,
and
monitoring stars to help better understand our Sun.
The
featured composite includes foreground and background images taken in April
from a mountaintop on
La Palma island in the
Canary Islands of
Spain.
Pictured, several telescopes from the
Roque de los Muchachos Observatory
are shown in front of a dark night sky.
Telescopes in the foreground include, left to right,
Magic 1,
Galileo,
Magic 2,
Gran Canarian, and
LST.
Sky highlights in the background include the
central band of our
Milky Way Galaxy, the constellations of
Sagittarius,
Ophiuchus and
Scorpius, the red-glowing
Eagle and
Lagoon Nebulas, and the stars
Alrami and
Antares.
Due to observatories
like this, humanity has understood more about our
night sky
in the past 100 years than ever before in all of
human history.