Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of
our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief
explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2004 September
21 Explanation: Many vast star fields in the plane of our Milky
Way Galaxy are rich in clouds of dust, and gas. First and
foremost, visible in the above picture are millions of stars,
many of which are similar to our Sun. Next huge filaments of
dark interstellar dust run across the image and block the light
from millions of more stars yet further across our Galaxy. The
bright red region on the left is part of the Omega Nebula, an
emission nebula of mostly hot hydrogen gas also known as M17. A
small bright grouping of stars near the image center is the open
cluster M18, while the long bright streak of stars just right of
center is M24. On the far right of the image is the picturesque
red emission nebula IC 1283 flanked by two blue reflection
nebulas NGC 6589 and NGC 6590. These objects are visible with a
small telescope toward