The Milky Way Above SOAR on Cerro Pachón

The band of the Milky Way galaxy stretches across the night sky above the SOAR telescope, located on Cerro Pachón in the foothills of the Chilean Andes. The mountain is also home to Gemini South, one half of the International Gemini Observatory operated by NSF’s NOIRLab, and Vera C. Rubin Observatory. Spread across the horizon are the vivid colors of airglow, a faint light emitted by energized atoms in Earth’s upper atmosphere.