APOD
Astronomy Picture of the Day
Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer.
The Milky Way Over Paranal
Explanation: 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 .
| Date | January 23, 2007 |
|---|---|
| Credit | Credit & Copyright: Stphane Guisard ( Los Cielos de Chile ) |
| Authors & editors: | Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP) |
| A service of: |
ASD at NASA / GSFC, NASA Science Activation & Michigan Tech. U. |



