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Astronomy Picture of the Day - Dueling Bands over the Atacama Desert
NASA ^ | 6 Jul, 2026 | Image Credit & Copyright: Julien Looten

Posted on 07/06/2026 12:55:02 PM PDT by MtnClimber

Explanation: What are these two bands in the sky? The more commonly seen band is on the left and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits in the disk of this spiral galaxy so that from inside, it appears as a band of comparable brightness all the way around the sky. The less commonly seen band, on the right, is zodiacal light -- sunlight reflected from dust orbiting the Sun in our Solar System. Zodiacal light is brightest near the Sun and so is best seen just before sunrise or just after sunset. On some evenings, this ribbon of zodiacal light can appear quite prominent. It was discovered only in this century that zodiacal dust was mostly expelled by comets that have passed near Jupiter. The featured image was captured about a year ago from the Atacama Desert in Chile.


TOPICS: Astronomy; Astronomy Picture of the Day; Science
KEYWORDS: apod; nasa

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For more detail go to the link and click on the image for a high definition image. You can then move the magnifying glass cursor then click to zoom in and click again to zoom out. When zoomed in you can scan by moving the side bars on the bottom and right side of the image.

1 posted on 07/06/2026 12:55:02 PM PDT by MtnClimber
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To: MtnClimber

2 posted on 07/06/2026 12:55:32 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

3 posted on 07/06/2026 12:56:00 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: 21stCenturion; 21twelve; 4everontheRight; A Navy Vet; A_perfect_lady; abb; AFB-XYZ; AFPhys; ...
Pinging the APOD list

πŸͺ 🌟 🌌 πŸ”

4 posted on 07/06/2026 12:56:58 PM PDT by MtnClimber (For photos of scenery, wildlife and climbing, click on my screen name for my FR home page.)
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To: MtnClimber

In the Atacama Desert you will find the Atacama Giant: an anthropomorphic geoglyph that is speculated to have acted as a lunar calendar for indigenous farmers of the region.


5 posted on 07/06/2026 1:06:30 PM PDT by BradyLS (DO NOT FEED THE BEARS!)
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To: MtnClimber

Dueling bands?

Izzat like Pink Floyd versus Lynyrd Skynyrd?............


6 posted on 07/06/2026 1:08:21 PM PDT by Red Badger (Iryna Zarutska, May 22, 2002 Kyiv, Ukraine – August 22, 2025 Charlotte, North Carolina Say her name)
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To: MtnClimber

Zodiacal Light sounds like an Enya cover band.


7 posted on 07/06/2026 1:16:53 PM PDT by KarlInOhio (If the Islamic Republic government is in power in Iran when the war is over, we will have lost.)
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To: MtnClimber

What a great photo. It has to be really dark. I have never been under skies that dark.


8 posted on 07/06/2026 1:17:21 PM PDT by telescope115 (Ad Astra, Ad Deum…)
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To: Red Badger

Skynyrd and Aerosmith


9 posted on 07/06/2026 1:30:29 PM PDT by BenLurkin (The above is not a statement of fact. It is opinion or satire. Or both.)
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To: MtnClimber

That’s definitely better than dueling banjos.


10 posted on 07/06/2026 5:03:16 PM PDT by ponygirl (Stay gold.)
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To: MtnClimber

.


11 posted on 07/06/2026 10:20:32 PM PDT by redinIllinois (Pro-life, accountant, gun-totin' Grandma - multi issue voter in)
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