A newly released image shows a colorful haze glowing above the Paranal Observatory in the Chilean Atacama Desert at sunset.
The European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) stands beneath a star-studded sky illuminated by a phenomenon known as zodiacal light, which is observed as a faint glow of diffuse light in the sky scattered by interplanetary dust. The glow, in this case, is caused by sunlight reflecting off dust particles in the evening sky.
The VLT consists of four telescopes, which comprise the world’s most advanced visible-light astronomical observatory. The telescopes work together to capture detailed views of the cosmos and have contributed to a number of significant discoveries with more than two decades of observations, including the first image of an exoplanet.
In the new image, a faint band of zodiacal light reaches up from the horizon and can be seen to the left of one of the telescopes, named Antu, which translates to “the sun” in the native Mapudungun language of central-southern Chile. Interplanetary dust in the solar system forms what is known as a zodiacal cloud, which straddles the ecliptic — the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun.
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In the new image, a faint band of zodiacal light reaches up from the horizon and can be seen to the left of one of the telescopes, named Antu, which translates to “the sun” in the native Mapudungun language of central-southern Chile. Interplanetary dust in the solar system forms what is known as a zodiacal cloud, which straddles the ecliptic — the plane of Earth’s orbit around the sun.
“This plane is rich in tiny particles of dust, which scatter sunlight and create this phenomenon,” ESO officials said in a statement released with the new image.
The diffuse light follows the direction of the ecliptic, which runs along the middle of the Zodiac. That’s why the glowing phenomenon is referred to as zodiacal light.
“The other planets in the solar system orbit the sun in roughly the same plane, and therefore can be often seen within the zodiacal light,” ESO officials said. “In this particular image, Venus is the brightest source and Mars is the faint, reddish dot to the upper-right of Venus.”
The zodiac can be divided into 12 equal parts along the ecliptic, which correspond to the western constellations: Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.
Zodiacal light — which, when seen before sunrise, is also known as “false dawn” — is very faint and, as a result, is often outshined by moonlight or light pollution on Earth. However, the Atacama Desert offers pristine night skies for viewing zodiacal light, according to ESO.
