A Dark River of dust seems to run from our Galactic Center,
then pool into a
starfield containing photogenic sky wonders.
Scrolling right will reveal many of these objects including (can you find?) the bright orange star
Antares, a
blue(-eyed) horsehead nebula, the white
globular star cluster M4,
the bright blue star system Rho Ophiuchi,
the dark brown Pipe nebula,
the red Lagoon nebula,
the red and blue Trifid nebula,
the red Cat's Paw Nebula,
and the multicolored but still important
center of our Galaxy.
This wide view
captures in exquisite detail about 50 degrees of the
nighttime sky,
100 times the size of the full Moon, covering constellations from
the Archer
(Sagittarius) through
the Snake Holder
(Ophiuchus), to
the Scorpion
(Scorpius).
The Dark River itself can be identified as the brown dust lane connected to
Antares,
and spans about 100 light years.
Since the Dark River
dust lane lies only about 500 light years away, it only appears as a bridge to the much more distant Galactic Center, that actually lies about 25,000 light years farther away.
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