Mon 6th of Jul 2026 UTC
Astronomy.co.uk Moon Phase Widget
Age: 21 days old
Phase: Waning Gibbous
Illumination: 62%
Distance: 380,082 km
from the NASA archive - 6th July 2026

What are these two bands in the sky?

The more commonly seen band is on the left and is the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. Our Sun orbits in the disk of this spiral galaxy so that from inside, it appears as a band of comparable brightness all the way around the sky. The less commonly seen band, on the right, is zodiacal light -- sunlight reflected from dust orbiting the Sun in our Solar System. Zodiacal light is brightest near the Sun and so is best seen just before sunrise or just after sunset. On some evenings, this ribbon of zodiacal light can appear quite prominent. It was discovered only in this century that zodiacal dust was mostly expelled by comets that have passed near Jupiter. The featured image was captured about a year ago from the Atacama Desert in Chile.

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Astronomy.co.uk
19th November 2025 at 15:31
https://www.astronomy.co.uk/astronomy-picture-of-the-day/
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Astronomy.co.uk
1st May 2025 at 09:19
Th Sky Tonight - May 2025
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Astronomy.co.uk
18th December 2024 at 10:01
https://www.astronomy.co.uk/the-sky-tonight/
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Astronomy.co.uk
8th February 2022 at 00:25
The Pinwheel Galaxy -NASA
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Astronomy.co.uk
17th January 2022 at 16:33
The first Full Moon of 2022, known as the Wolf Moon, will occur tonight! Throughout cold January nights, the howling of wolves could be heard around villages in both Europe and America, so the January Full Moon became widely known as the Wolf Moon. The exact time of the Full Wolf Moon is January 17, 2022, 23:48 GMT
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Astronomy.co.uk
16th January 2022 at 14:07
The Lagoon Nebula - Hubble
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Astronomy.co.uk
5th January 2022 at 10:54
This is a small section of the Cygnus supernova blast wave which appears as a delicate streak of light. Credit: ESA/Hubble & NASA, W. Blair; acknowledgment: Leo Shatz
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Astronomy.co.uk
4th January 2022 at 10:01
An exploding star ! Hubble
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Astronomy.co.uk
3rd January 2022 at 12:12
The station crew sees 16 sunrises a day, and they officially started 2022 at 12am GMT.
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Astronomy.co.uk
2nd January 2022 at 09:07
The Snow Angel Nebula - Hubble
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Astronomy.co.uk
1st January 2022 at 09:04
Crescent Earth The Earth as seen from the Moon on the Command Module of Apollo17 on December 16, 1972. Credit: @NASA (image #AS17-152-23274); Processing: @JPMajor
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Astronomy.co.uk
31st December 2021 at 11:25
Dolphin head nebula located near the center of the constellation Canis Major
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Astronomy.co.uk
30th December 2021 at 13:57
DEM L249, located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, is an unusual supernova remnant. Image Credit: NASA, ESA, and Y. Chou (Academia Sinica, Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics); Processing: Gladys Kober (NASA/Catholic University of America)
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