Carnegie Science Holiday Card 2014

The Milky Way -- Image Credit: Consuelo Gonzalez, Carnegie Institution for Science, The Observatories

The Milky Way is the galaxy that contains our Solar System. Its name "milky" comes from its appearance as a dim glowing band arching across the night sky in which the naked eye cannot distinguish individual stars. From Earth, the Milky Way appears a a band because its disk-shaped structure is viewed from within. this picture of the galactic center was taken before sunrise above Carnegie's Las Campanas Observatory in the Atacama desert, Chile. The photo conveys three realms of Carnegie Science research: life, Earth and space.