January 23, 2007
You were born on a tiny world orbiting an ordinary star in an unremarkable galaxy — and yet, the fact that you exist at all is the most...
The Milky Way Over Paranal
Birthday · January 23, 2007
A little universe, just for you
Your date.
Ready to give.
Free PNG · 1080 × 1350 · No account needed
Image rights and credit requirements apply when sharing or reusing imagery.
Date & occasion only
Change the year
APOD published January 23, 2007. Credit: St�phane Guisard (Los Cielos de Chile). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
It's not the sky that's falling. More accurately, the Earth is rising. The Earth's rotation gives a continually changing view to all Earth observers, including those measuring the universe at the Paranal Observatory. The observatory's four, massive 8.2 meter telescope units are situated on top of the 2,600 meter high mountain, Cerro Paranal, in the dry Atacama Desert in northern Chile. The individual unit telescopes can be used separately or in combination. Their names, Antu, Kueyen, Melipal, and Yepun, are taken from the Mapuche language. Fittingly they translate to Sun, Moon, Evening Star, and Southern Cross. Together they are fittingly known as the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope. A higher time resolution version of the above movie is available here.
Image credit: St�phane Guisard (Los Cielos de Chile)