This image, taken at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile’s Atacama Desert, shows the Milky Way as it peeks above the horizon, with two of the observatory’s telescopes bracketing the starry, dusty band as it stretches across the sky.
The Milky Way galaxy is our celestial country within the universe, while the solar system is our neighborhood within it. We can't always see the Milky Way most of the time, but if you go to where the only things you see are the stars, you could get a glimpse of the galaxy we call home.
The European Southern Observatory (ESO) recently released a picture featuring two telescopes of the La Silla Observatory getting front row access to a view of the Milky Way galaxy.
The observatories are located within Chile's Atacama desert.
La Silla Milky Way Photograph Details
According to a report from Space.com, the telescope to the right of the Milky Way, which lies in the background, is the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS) program best known for locating exoplanets.
Underneath the telescope's location lies the Coude Auxillary Telescope, which has been decommissioned since 1998. The ESO's page for the telescope says that it is now connected to the observatory's 3.6-meter telescope through an optical fiber.
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To the left of the Milky Way lies the dome of the Swedish-ESO Submillimeter Telescope, which the ESO decommissioned in 2003 after decades of observing celestial objects in radio waves. The 3.58-meter New Technology Telescope is also located to the left of the Milky Way but is not visible in the picture.
The Milky Way isn't as clearly viewed as those in low-light environments due to the light pollution from nearby cities. However, the view is clear enough to see the galaxy's zodiacal light, a form of emission that happens when the sun scatters dust particles in our solar system's plane, where the planet and most of our neighborhood moons orbit.
Places To View The Milky Way Galaxy
Aside from the ESO's La Silla Observatory, you can also view the Milky Way from several places in the US. According to Outdoorsy.com's article on the matter, the best places to clearly see the Milky Way are Utah's Capital Reef National Park and Naural Bridges National Monument, Nevada's Death Valley National Park, New Mexico's Bosque Del Apache Wildlife Preserve and Clayton Lake State Park, as well as the Grand Canyon National Park. You can also go to Hawaii's Mauna Kea to get the unique experience of viewing the Milky Way atop a volcano.
However, If you wish to go abroad and see it in other countries, Capture The Atlas recommends Canada's Banff National Park, the Roque de los Muchachos in La Palma of the Spanish Canary Islands, Namibia and the Sahara Desert in Africa, and the Tasman Glacier in New Zealand.
Capture The Atlas aso recommends going to the Dolomite mountain range in Italy to see the Milky Way, with the villages of Tre Cime di Lavaredo, Cinque Torri, and Monte Pelmo being the best places to see the Milky Way within the mountain range.
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