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Birthday · November 9, 2025

Road to the Galactic Center

November 9, 2025

Another trip around the Sun. A whole sky of possibilities.

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Selected image source ↗ APOD published November 9, 2025. Credit: Michael Abramyan. A publication-date match, not a photo taken on your date. Independent of NASA.

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Road to the Galactic Center

Original APOD · November 9, 2025 ↗

Read the original APOD for the astronomer’s explanation and full image credits. Its text is preserved in the archive as published.

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Does the road to our galaxy's center go through Monument Valley? It doesn't have to, but if your road does -- take a picture. In this case, the road is US Route 163 and iconic buttes on the Navajo National Reservation populate the horizon. The band of Milky Way Galaxy stretches down from the sky and appears to be a continuation of the road on Earth. Filaments of dust darken the Milky Way, in contrast to billions of bright stars and several colorful glowing gas clouds including the Lagoon and Trifid nebulas. The featured picture is a composite of images taken with the same camera and from the same location -- Forrest Gump Point in Utah, USA. The foreground was taken just after sunset in early 2021 September during the blue hour, while the background is a mosaic of four exposures captured a few hours later.

Image credit: Michael Abramyan

Explore November 9 in other years · 31 APOD entries, 1995–2025

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