George Preoteasa (Member 41,445) travelled to the El Sauce Observatory in Chile to see the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere. Our galaxy, the Milky Way, is visible as the bright band stretching diagonally through the sky. The darker patch within the Milky Way just above the mountain ridge is known as the Coalsack Nebula.

Nebulas are interstellar clouds made of dust and gases such as hydrogen and helium. In denser regions, they can collapse under their own gravity to give birth to new stars.

Other southern sights that aren’t visible from most of the Northern Hemisphere, where George is based, include the Southern Cross, the four bright stars just to the left of the Coalsack Nebula, and the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. These are the bright clusters in the middle and to the right of the sky here. They’re irregular dwarf galaxies orbiting the Milky Way.