July 24, 2019
The same gravity that holds galaxies together and keeps planets in their orbits also held you to the Earth on the day you were born.
Zodiacal Road
Birthday · July 24, 2019
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APOD published July 24, 2019. Credit: Ruslan Merzlyakov (RMS Photography). A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.
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.
Image credit: Ruslan Merzlyakov (RMS Photography)