Ancient Egyptians had a pretty interesting passion for astronomy, and we cannot be otherwise but extremely fascinated by those huge pyramids that they built. The Great Pyramid of Giza, for instance, which measures 139 meters in height, has been aligned with great precision to cardinal points by those who constructed it thousands of years ago.
Here’s one fascinating but also sad fact about our Milky Way galaxy: it’s impossible to capture a 100% accurate photo of it. That’s because we are all part of the galaxy, and it would take forever for a spaceship to travel far away enough in order to take a photo.
How about bringing both Egyptian land and parts of our beautiful Milky Way galaxy in a single photo? That’s exactly what NASA did through a recent ‘Picture of the Day.’ Behold the outcome:
NASA's view of Milky Way over Egyptian Desert | 2023-05-10: For ten years the stargazer dreamed of taking a picture like this. The dreamer knew that the White Desert National Park in Egypt's Western Desert is a picturesque place hosting… | *not EUT https://t.co/6PalHtBNKS pic.twitter.com/IKwjJvtizw
— Electric Universe (@Elec_Universe) May 10, 2023
NASA explained:
For ten years the stargazer dreamed of taking a picture like this. The dreamer knew that the White Desert National Park in Egypt’s Western Desert is a picturesque place hosting numerous chalk formations sculpted into surreal structures by a sandy wind. The dreamer knew that the sky above could be impressively dark on a clear moonless night, showing highlights such as the central band of our Milky Way Galaxy in impressive color and detail. So the dreamer invited an even more experienced astrophotographer to spend three weeks together in the desert and plan the composite images that needed to be taken and processed to create the dream image.
Apart from the multitude of stars (over 200 billion), the Milky Way is also teeming with dust and gas. There’s also a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy, which is powerful enough to absorb anything that comes too close. But at the same time, the existence of our galaxy wouldn’t have been possible without that black hole at its core.
