April 23, 2016
On your birthday, the Earth completed another orbit — 584 million miles traveled since your last celebration.
Milky Way in Moonlight
Birthday · April 23, 2016
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
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APOD published April 23, 2016. Credit: Babak Tafreshi. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
A waning crescent moon, early morning twilight, and Al Hamra's city lights on the horizon can't hide the central Milky Way in this skyscape from planet Earth. Captured in a single exposure, the dreamlike scene looks southward across the region's grand canyon from Jabal Shams (Sun Mountain), near the highest peak in Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula. Mist, moonlight, and shadows still play along the steep canyon walls. Dark rifts along the luminous band of the Milky Way are the galaxy's cosmic dust clouds. Typically hundreds of light-years distant, they obscure starlight along the galactic plane, viewed edge-on from the Solar System's perspective.
Image credit: Babak Tafreshi