2026-08-16
Milky Way over Yellowstone
Today's window into deep space: Milky Way over Yellowstone. The story behind the image:
Why this matters
Behind the picture is deep-space objects. Light that left these objects long ago is only reaching us now, which is why a single image can double as a snapshot of the distant past.
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This connects to what you can track in real time on our 3D globe — explore Deep Space galaxy map. Or open the live globe to watch flights, satellites, the ISS and spacecraft move right now.
The science, from NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day
The Milky Way was not created by an evaporating lake. The colorful pool of water, about 10 meters across, is known as Silex Spring and is located in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, USA. Illuminated artificially, the colors are caused by layers of bacteria that grow in the hot spring. Steam rises off the spring, heated by underground magma associated with the Yellowstone Hotspot. Unrelated and far in the distance, the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy arches high overhead, a band lit by billions of stars. The picture features a 16-image panorama taken in 2014. If the Yellowstone Hotspot causes another supervolcanic eruption as it did about 640,000 years ago, a large part of North America would be affected.
Image credit: Dave Lane · Source: NASA APOD
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