A Milky-Way Band
Credit & Copyright:
John P. Gleason, Celestial Images
Most bright stars in our
Milky Way Galaxy reside in a disk.
Since our Sun also resides in this disk, these stars
appear to us as a
diffuse band that circles the sky.
The above panorama of a
southern band of the
Milky Way's disk was taken from
Australia.
A 40-minute exposure was used, and the colors were digitally enhanced.
Visible are many
bright stars,
dark dust lanes,
red emission nebulae,
blue reflection nebulae, and
clusters of stars.
In addition to all this matter that we can see,
astronomers suspect there exists even more
dark matter that we cannot see.