Great Picture Of The Zodiacal Light

This is an unusually-good picture of the zodiacal light!

I've clearly-seen the zodiacal light just once before, in 2006, in Queensland. It was possible to get a sense of depth too, and get the feeling that one could see dust nearly on the opposite side of the sun, out towards the orbit of Mars, hundreds of millions of miles away! If that sense was an illusion, it was a real-powerful illusion!

This is the rarely seen zodiacal light, a triangular glow visible only in night skies free of overpowering moonlight and light pollution.

Zodiacal light is sunlight reflected by dust particles between the sun and Earth, and is best seen close to sunrise or sunset. The celestial glow spreads over the same band of the sky as the constellations of the zodiac.

The image was taken at the European Southern Observatory's La Silla Paranal Observatory in Chile, facing west some minutes after the sun had set. A sea of clouds has settled in the valley below La Silla, which sits at an altitude of 2400 metres.

(Image: ESO/Y. Beletsky)