A gigantic cloud of dust which lies within the plane of Earth's orbit...
Scheduled air date: 1999 Aug 30-Sep 05
A gigantic cloud of dust which lies within the plane of Earth's orbit...
...can sometimes be seen illuminated in the pre-dawn (or post-dusk) sky as a faint cone
called the Zodiacal Light, or False Dawn. It is most easily seen near equinoxes
(shown here for Autumnal Equinox on September 23rd—the Milky way is also visible in
the right half of the image).
If you wish to view illustrations for other episodes, please see our Star Gazer Illustrated directory.
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Illustrations on this page were created using
TheSky Astronomy
Software, an advanced desktop planetarium program designed for Windows. Copyright © 1999-2006 by Software Bisque, Inc. |