Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2019 July 24

                                Zodiacal Road
        Image Credit & Copyright: Ruslan Merzlyakov (RMS Photography)

   Explanation: What's that strange light down the road? Dust orbiting the
   Sun. At certain times of the year, a band of sun-reflecting dust from
   the inner Solar System appears prominently just after sunset -- or just
   before sunrise -- and is called zodiacal light. Although the origin of
   this dust is still being researched, a leading hypothesis holds that
   zodiacal dust originates mostly from faint Jupiter-family comets and
   slowly spirals into the Sun. Recent analysis of dust emitted by Comet
   67P, visited by ESA's robotic Rosetta spacecraft, bolster this
   hypothesis. Pictured when climbing a road up to Teide National Park in
   the Canary Islands of Spain, a bright triangle of zodiacal light
   appeared in the distance soon after sunset. Captured on June 21, the
   scene includes bright Regulus, alpha star of Leo, standing above center
   toward the left. The Beehive Star Cluster (M44) can be spotted below
   center, closer to the horizon and also immersed in the zodiacal glow.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
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