Colorful Airglow Bands Surround Milky Way

The sky would glow like a giant repeating rainbow. Airglow. Air glows all the time, but it's hard to see. A storm may cause a noticeable rippling in the Earth's atmosphere. When a rock is thrown in water, it creates waves in the air. Red airglow is caused by OH molecule that is excited by the sun's UV rays, while orange and green airglow is caused by oxygen and sodium atoms higher up. The photographer noticed the central band of the Milky Way in China a few years ago. The sensitive camera image showed airglow bands to be quite prominent and span the entire sky. The colors are more vibrant thanks to the enhanced featured image.

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Where do stars form? One place, star forming regions known as EGGs, are being uncovered at the end of this giant pillar of gas and dust. EGGs are dense regions of mostly hydrogen gas that collapse to form stars. Light from the hottest stars causes the end of the pillar to heat up, revealing more EGGs and young stars. This picture was created from exposures lasting over 30 hours with the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope, and digitally processed with modern software by experienced volunteers in Argentina. Newborn stars will gradually destroy their birth pillars over the next 100,000 years if a supernova doesn't destroy them first.