                        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.

                               2025 August 10
      A night sky is shown above a road going off into the distance. An
     unusual area of brightened sky that does not block background stars
   appears diagonally from the lower right across the sky. Please see the
                 explanation for more detailed information.

                                Zodiacal Road
           Image Credit & Copyright: Ruslan Merzlyakov (astrorms)

   Explanation: 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, bolsters 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, 2019,
   the scene includes bright Regulus, the alpha star of the constellation
   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.

                     Tomorrow's picture: near to the Sun
     __________________________________________________________________

       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.
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                           NASA Science Activation
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

