It is Milky Way season -- the time of the year when the galaxy is visible in Maine - and although it rises above the horizon starting in February as a horizontal structure, it will gradually become more and more vertical as the year progresses until it is nearly straight up and down in October, when it once again disappears for the winter.
We live in the spiral galaxy known as the Milky Way. It is called "spiral" because if you looked at it from above, it would look like a giant spinning pinwheel. The name "Milky Way" comes from a Greek Myth about the goddess Hera who sprayed milk across the sky. China calls the band of color the "Silver River" and in Africa, it is called the "Backbone of Night". We share this galaxy with somewhere between 100-400 million stars, and at least that many planets. Our sun is located on one of the spiral arms. and if you travelled from our sun to the center of the middle of the galaxy at the speed of light (186,000 miles per second) it would take 25,000 years to get there!
This view of the Milky Way comes from inside a sea cave -- careful planning is required to combine the location of the Milky Way (which rotates through the night as well as through the year), low tide, and clear skies! Add to that the fact that this time of year, the Milky Way galactic center crests the horizon at about 3am, the process becomes quite the adventure! It may appear that you can see a lot of stars - but for each one that you can see, there are approximately 20 million more that you cannot see!
To the naked eye, the Milky Way is fairly dim, unless you are looking from a very dark sky -- usually a moonless night in a region with no light pollution. Maine is lucky to have an International Dark Sky Sanctuary at Katahdin Woods and Waters- along with much of the Atlantic Ocean (except in congested towns......) and many areas in the northern part of the state. The color you see is actually caused by the gasses and dust in the galaxy - but in reality, most of the color is probably a combination of contaminants and artistic rendition. Scientists seem to think that the actual color of the Milky Way is.....well.....white as snow. Go figure. However, the orange you see in the photo above is caused by a SINGLE building with security lights on -- what a massive effect light pollution has! I was a little miffed initially but eventually decided that I actually liked the photo. Particularly with the reflection in the bay - and it is a good teaching tool to demonstrate how seemingly small things actually have a huge impact.
It is almost enough to make you dizzy to think that even as our planet rotates around the sun, our solar system rotates around the center of the Milky Way galaxy. And to give you a sense of size -- it takes 250 million years to make a single revolution! Add to this the fact that we are speeding towards another galaxy -- the Andromeda Galaxy -- at the incredible speed of 250,000 mph. Luckily, we aren't expected to crash into them for about another 4 billion years. So much happens just beyond our circle of awareness.
And just like that, the Milky Way also enters the area just beyond our awareness - as the marine fog silently moves in on catlike feet, quieting the rush of the waves, dampening the stars in the sky, and leaving only the sound of the fog bells up and down the coast ringing in the air.
Instagram quiz of the week -- what behaviour are we seeing in the photo above?
Check out my instagram page for the answer: